Shonan Junai Gumi! (GTO: The Early Years)

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Shounan Junai Gumi, Shonan Pure Love Gang, Young GTO

Japanese: 湘南純愛組！

More titles

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 31

Chapters: 267

Status: Finished

Published: Sep 26, 1990 to Sep 18, 1996

Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance

Themes: Delinquents, School

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Magazine (Weekly)

Authors: Fujisawa, Tooru (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.23¹ (scored by 7,941 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #401²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #835

Members: 24,049

Favorites: 791

Available At

Kodansha USA

Resources

Wikipedia

8.23

Ranked #401Popularity #835Members 24,049

MangaShounen Magazine (Weekly)Fujisawa, Tooru (Story & Art)

Add to My List

Volumes: /31

Chapters: /267

Edit
Synopsis

Eikichi Onizuka and Ryuuji Danma are members of infamous biker gang, Oni Baku. When not out riding around, they can be found in school, trying to pick up young women. This is the story of the young Onizuka, who would later become the greatest teacher in Japan.

(Source: ANN)

Edit
Background

The first 10 volumes of Shonan Junai Gumi! was published in English as GTO: The Early Years by Tokyopop based on the 15-volume deluxe edition from June 13, 2006, to February 9, 2009. Vertical Inc. picked up the license and released the remaining volumes from February 21, 2012, to October 30, 2012.

The manga was adapted into a Japanese live-action TV series that premiered on Amazon Prime Video on February 28, 2020.

Edit

Related Entries

More characters
Characters

Onizuka, Eikichi

Main

Danma, Ryuuji

Main

Masaki, Kyosuke

Supporting

Saejima, Toshiyuki

Supporting

Kadena, Nao

Supporting

Fujisaki, Shinomi

Supporting

Akutsu, Junya

Supporting

Murakoshi, Ayumi

Supporting

Kamata, Jun

Supporting

Natsumi

Supporting

Reviews

Jun 20, 2025

Kinglink

Recommended

GTO is an epic manga, but you know Shonan Junai Gumi is just as good. Rather than follow Onizuka as a Great Teacher, we see Onizuka as a punk, a high schooler who hangs out with his pal Ryuji. Both of these characters are great, though the series does loose a step at a few points when Ryuji grows up a bit.

That being said, Onizuka and Ryuji, and honestly many characters are mega pervs... and oddly it works here. Onizuka hitting on a teacher, is different then Onizuka AS a teacher hitting on students. I think it's clear why. ...

Open

Gift

Jul 10, 2021

Savagexx7

Recommended

Alright, I'll get straight to the point. If you're a fan of GTO this is defenitely a must read for you. It is also for you if you like comedy plus action.

Story - 9

The entire plot was really well made. It can make you cry and laugh at the same time. For me, the first 100 chapters had no problems. Midnight Angels arc (92 - 129chps) I found to be too long and sometimes confused. Second part of the arc picked up nicely and it was a blast to read. Also, Chasing Elieen arc was a bit underwhelming compared to others. My favourite was defenitely ...

Open

Gift

Oct 26, 2021

Trap_Traps_Traps

Not Recommended

This review is from the perspective of someone who hasn't read or watched anything from GTO whatsoever, with no prior bias towards the characters or mangaka. Many will not have even heard of this prequel despite the success of it's follow up work and let's just say there's a very good reason for that.

Reading SJG you'll find a charismatic main duo, well choreographed dynamic fight scenes, an occasional hilarious slice of comedy and some brilliant highs along the way. Now all of that would be great if not for the extensive amount of abhorrent flaws that co-exist within the story. Unfortunately aside from the action ... scenes all the positives I've listed are completely overshadowed and in fact entirely negated within the same story. It is no exaggeration to say that while this series really did have some enthralling peak points, it also had, not just one, but several of the worst storyline and plot developments I've ever come across within fiction.

So let's start off with my biggest gripe, the handling and overuse of rape. Rape is a tool used in many stories to evoke either shock or a strong emotional response towards a character or scene in one way or another. Now of course there are other more intricate uses of sexual violence as a device in fiction but generally speaking these are without doubt the most common. The handling within this manga is extremely lazy. Half of the story arcs in SJG follow the exact same formula of a girl being introduced, immediately used as a narrative object to vilify the enemy of the week through being raped and/or abused by them, then tossed aside for the remainder of the manga after Onizuka deals with said villain. Subsequently we move on to the next arc and repeat with a new enemy showing up. Now while that repetitiveness was excruciatingly boring at times this is still a battle shounen so it's not as if I went into this expecting much different. However the fact that this series follows the basic structure of your average battle shounen is exactly what brought upon its most glaring issues. If you're familiar with the genre you'll know that the protagonists will often forgive and then potentially even befriend their enemies later and unfortunately despite some of the antagonists raping/abusing friends of Onizuka, SJG is exactly the same in this regard. Some early highs of Onizuka smacking the faces of these thugs are completely ruined later when he, without any context whatsoever sometimes, is suddenly seen to be friends with them.

Minor SPOILERS Ahead!!

For a series completely driven by it's protagonist, events like this that make you dislike Onizuka only serve to compound the disgruntlement with how the manga begins to unfold. Sadly this only gets worse. There are several constant flimsy affirmations of Onizuka being a man of principles and ideals, albeit while also being an angry/horny teenager, such as him believing if a guy gets a girl pregnant they should support her or how he'll sometimes stop other delinquents from picking on the weak or even take other actions such as not sleeping with a girl for pleasure alone. Now you'd be hard pressed to argue against the morality of any of those points. Regrettably they contrast entirely to the behaviour of Onizuka as well as his interactions with other characters. A few examples of this would be when this one guy sold his girlfriend off to be gangbanged by a group of thugs as payment for them beating up Onizuka. Now what happened with this guy and his girlfriend after Onizuka dealt with those thugs? All was completely forgiven. Not just from Onizuka's point of view either but his girlfriend, although clearly having been through the worst experience of her life, instantly forgave him after a few panels of tears. Onizuka himself also thought it was a good idea for her to stay with the guy. Of course this isn't a completely unrealistic outcome, at least between the couple. It's no secret there are people in the world who stick with the wrong partner for whatever reason. However that doesn't make the result any less unsatisfying.

Later on there is another girl who is raped by a gang leader who forces her to be his girlfriend. As punishment when she decides to leave the gang he has his 30 men gangrape her. Or at least he was about too but at the last minute steps in and saves her along with Onizuka. Much like before this man is completely forgiven by the girl and he befriends Onizuka too despite what he'd done to the girl who was one of Onizuka's closest friends. At that point it was already getting to be almost impossible to empathise with Onizuka but that wasn't even a droplet in the ocean of dirt Onizuka would later plunge himself into. The single moment that completely ended any attachment I may have had to Onizuka or any faith in this series whatsoever comes very late on when despite everything he's preached about before, he breaks into his friends house and tries to rape her while she's sleeping. Getting as far as pulling her clothes off and swinging his body into mid thrust before she luckily woke up and kicked him away. What happened after that? You guessed it. She forgives him after screaming at and hitting him a couple of times. I can only imagine how former readers of GTO with prior bias towards Onizuka tried to laugh this scene off and push it to the back of their minds as they continued reading. But let alone Onizuka's character it's hard for me to understand why Fujisawa thought it would be funny to have the protagonist lose control of his libido and go so far to satisfy his sexual urges as to result to such a vile act.

You could go the route of the social justice warrior and talk about how the women are only used as narrative objects for the men with almost every female character being completely degraded and stripped of any dignity whatsoever in this story. Or you could even criticise any use of sexual violence in any manga which leads to a character having their clothes stripped before the viewer. I however won't be doing either of those things. As a story targeted at pent-up teenage boys from the perspective of two horny teenage boys who just want to fight and have sex with any girl who comes into view, it's not such an incomprehensible thing that the women would be portrayed in such a way. Although it's certainly uncomfortable. If that's how Fujisawa wants to set up his manga then I wouldn't begrudge him that. Violence, sex, edginess and cool one liners fired off at the right times sell after all.

Overall I wouldn't recommend SJG anyone at all. If you enjoyed GTO and can overlook the sketchy moments in this manga then I'm sure you'll be able to at least enjoy seeing a younger Onizuka. Towards the end there are also some better arcs you'd likely love. One of them even has no rape scenes whatsoever! If only that hadn't been an anomaly perhaps this manga could have gone somewhere.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Prequels and Sequels You May Not Know Exist

by MeanMrMusician

12 Entries · 2 Restacks

Best-Selling Kodansha Manga

by Angel-99

50 Entries · 4 Restacks

cool manga

by pabloodzn

24 Entries · 7 Restacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

View All

More news
Recent News

NY Times Manga Best Seller List for June 3rd - 9th

Graphic books best seller list (Manga & OEL) for June 3rd - 9th 1. Bleach, Vol. 41 2. Bleach, Vol. 40 3. Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 18 4. Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal,...read more

Jun 15, 2012 4:16 PM by Snow | Discuss (18 comments)

NY Times Manga Best Seller List for February 26th - March 3rd

Graphic books best seller list (Manga & OEL) for February 26th - March 3rd 1. xxxHolic, Vol. 19 2. Soulless: The Manga, Vol. 1 3. Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Vol....read more

Mar 10, 2012 10:23 AM by Snow | Discuss (31 comments)

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Shonan Junai Gumi Chapter 86 Discussion Rasco - Jan 21, 2012	3 replies	by RedComet91 »» 10 hours ago
Poll: Shonan Junai Gumi Chapter 81 Discussion Rasco - Jan 21, 2012	3 replies	by RedComet91 »» Yesterday, 12:34 AM
Poll: Shonan Junai Gumi Chapter 71 Discussion Rasco - Jan 21, 2012	4 replies	by RedComet91 »» Jun 15, 10:58 PM
Poll: Shonan Junai Gumi Chapter 69 Discussion Rasco - Jan 21, 2012	4 replies	by RedComet91 »» Jun 14, 5:21 PM
Poll: Shonan Junai Gumi Chapter 68 Discussion Rasco - Jan 21, 2012	7 replies	by RedComet91 »» Jun 14, 5:18 PM

Shonan Junai Gumi!
GTO: The Early Years
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Related Entries

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More characters
Characters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Shonan Junai Gumi!GTO: The Early Years Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

EditSynopsis

EditBackground

Related Entries

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More charactersCharacters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations Recommendations

More newsRecent News

More discussionsRecent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Shonan Junai Gumi!
GTO: The Early Years
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More characters
Characters

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion