Other Reviews


This section will feature reviews and short descriptions of other anime series and movies. I will try not to give too much of spoilers for them. Back to Other Reviews Main

GTO

Directed by: Noriyuke Abe

GTO stands for Great Teacher Onizuka. Onizuka is a former gang leader and karate champion who now wants to teach, although his original motivation is because he wants to be surrounded by high school girls. His old gang friend Ryuji helps him along the way and when he lands a teaching job he meets a fellow teacher named Ms. Fuyutsuki, whom he likes. The students play various pranks on him but he usually gets the upper hand in the end. He faces his students, fellow co-workers, and many others while always managing to succeed against the odds. He wants to be the greatest teacher there is and often uses unorthodox methods.

The DVD features contain the first four episodes. The first two are both an hour long and the second two are half-hour episodes. It also has the original Japanese opening, character designs, trailers, and Onizuka- gone wild; which is a few clips of when he does some strange things and has some strange looks. The second DVD contains five episodes, Japanese opening and closing, character designs, Onizuka- gone wild 2, trailers, and GTO eye catches; which seems to be stills for going and returning to commercials. The third DVD contains 5 episodes, another Onizuka gone wild, more GTO eye catches, trailers, textless opening, textless ending, and character designs. The fourth DVD contains another five episodes, more Onizuka gone wild, trailers, eye catches, character designs, and textless ending and opening for the new opening and ending segments. It also has an interview with the original manga creator Tohru Fujisawa. The fifth DVD has four episodes, the second part of the interview, previews, eye catches, a textless opening and closing, and outtakes. The sixth DVD has four episodes with the eye catches inserted throughout the episodes. It also has the third part of the interview, previews, textless ending and opening, outtakes, and an Initial D music video not relating to GTO. The seventh DVD has four episodes with the eye catches inserted throughout the episodes. It also has the fourth part of the interview, previews, textless ending and opening, outtakes, an Initial D music video, and a GTO music video. The eighth DVD has four episodes with the eye catches inserted throughout the episodes. It also has previews, textless ending and opening (with another new closing), outtakes, an Initial D music video, and a GTO music video. The ninth DVD has four episodes with inserted eye catches, previews, the Initial D and GTO music videos, outtakes, and the original first two openings and original third ending. The tenth and final DVD has four episodes, original Japanese closing of endings 1 and 2, an Initial D music video, the GTO: School's in Session music video, previews, and a small documentary about waiting for the creator, Fujisawa, to arrive at the San Diego Comic Con. All of the DVDs have notes on the inside cover explaining cultural references.

Final Verdict: GTO is a funny series. It has an interesting plot, some fan service, and a character that's fun to watch in Onizuka. There is some PG-13 nudity in it. GTO has some serious points that are done rather well, despite Onizuka's messing around. It has a fair mix of comedy and drama. Onizuka also has some of the strangest and funniest facial expressions I've seen in anime. The cultural notes help explain some of the comments made in the subtitled version, but they are generally changed somewhat in the dubbed version leaving little explanation. The series is truly entertaining and mixes good drama into the story while never really losing it's key points and also keeping comedy into a plot that develops over the 43 episode series.

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