GTO focuses on 22 year old ex biker gang leader Eikichi Onizuka. Needless to say, his ambitious new goal is to become the best teacher in the world with his reformed self. Oh, and to pick up hot high school girls in the process. He goes through teacher training, homeroom teacher responsibilities, and of course seems to get the worst class at which ever school he gets the pleasure of working at. The students put him through terrible instances that would drive a normal teacher crazy or get them fired. Luckily, Onizuka doesn’t believe in conventional rules to fix these broken students.
For the time and even future, GTO music hits all of the right marks. Animation and art style is just as unconventional as Onizuka’s teaching abilities. Studio Pierrot is never known for high budget animation, but the different art style of the GTO manga translates well to make this anime and make it lasting long term. Although characters are fairly arche-typed such as a hacker student and ditz big breasted girl, and each person seemingly has the same face as the person next to them. Basically not much different than what was seen in Initial D.
GTO fits and knows what it is from the start. It is a crazy over the top comedy about Onizuka teaching these terrible students moral lessons and values even though they want nothing more than to ruin him. GTO is done perfectly in this sense. Some may think that the humour is a bit repetitive and juvenile, and that’s ok to believe in it. What’s more disappointing is the abrupt halt the series gets as it was cancelled at 43 episodes with more manga to go.
Overall, this is an anime that must be watched or tried just for the fact of the reputation GTO has in the anime world. Its’ crazy comedy yet somehow keeping a serious moral tone just works. Sure, sometimes this kind of comedy isn’t for everybody, but in the end it is all about if the viewer was entertained. Let’s just say the manga was ordered to continue this hilarious adventure.
