What is the purpose of an education then?
To excel in the academics, attend a prestigious university, and find a well-paying job.
But what happens to other students who are not capable of achieving the expectations that society has placed on them?
Simple. They are left behind. They become subjected to delinquency and are frowned upon by the upper class of the well-educated society.
Are the students to be blamed? Or, perhaps, are the teachers the ones to blame?
“The relationship between a student and a teacher is a sacred one.”
Taking place at the reputable Holy Forest Academy, the Great Teacher Onizuka, a 22 year old virgin and former mischievous bike gangster, arrived to save the school from these problems!
GTO attacks the education system in Japan. Onizuka, with a flawed and shady record, makes him the most unqualified teacher. But the bureaucrats were not seeing past the true Onizuka. The story shows Onizuka avoiding being expelled by his students, and eventually solving his students’ problems, which cover life lessons and society problems in a subtle but deep way. Each and every character's problems are issues that you can relate to as a student and in real life as well. There are occasional clever surprises and cliff hangers to keep the viewer engaged in the show.
GTO also features comedy, often sexual and perverted. Ranging from skirt chasing to sexual fantasies, the perverted comedy will occasionally give you a laugh. The stupid, ugly faces that Onizuka usually makes will, initially, disgust you, but you will eventually find it quite humorous. As common in anime, especially during GTO’s time, some of the intended comedy is not at all funny and turns out to be cheesy and barfing, “smh” comedy. But there were times when I caught myself laughing out loud at the things Onizuka did with his students.
Occasionally, you will cringe at Onizuka’s unorthodox teaching and discipline methods such as the torture of his disobedient students. The sexual themes are also part of the complaint. Those sensitive to these kinds of materials may not be able to see past it and automatically declare GTO trash and fanservice. This was the best way to describe Onizuka though. He does not hide any faults. He explicitly reveals them. He boldly walks with the words “pervert”, “pedo”, “gangster” on the back his shirt not worrying about how others judge him. In spite of his imperfection, Onizuka perfectly exemplifies the true man and teacher. Onizuka is basically Hester Prynne from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter but in a far more humorous and contemporary way.
The OST was relatively good, with some really memorable soundtracks. The OPs and EDs were nice to watch and listen to as well. I was not fond of the sub, most particularly because of Onizuka's voice actor. Try out the dub for the legendary Cowboy Bebop Spike's voice actor, Steven Blum, who does Oniuzka's dub.
The art/animation was pretty decent for its time.
GTO suffers from technical problems such as occasional bad writing. Some arcs ended abruptly or had a random filler episode in a few arcs. Some dialogues were poorly written, making intended emotional scenes sound pathetically dumb and extremely cheesy.
Overall, you will find GTO enjoyable and fun to watch. With the frequent comedy, deep and emotional scenes will give a change in pace and catch you by surprise. It was a show that revealed the problems in a diploma-based society and the issues of the current education system. It’s silly. It’s stupid. It’s deep. It’s fresh.
So remember, if you think you can expel tor outsmart teachers, then you haven’t seen Great Teacher Onizuka!
