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Great Teacher Onizuka

Yeah, yeah, last anime fan alive to watch GTO, blah blah. As you probably know, Great Teacher Onizuka is a comedy about a perverted ex-gang member named Onizuka who takes the world of education by storm with his outrageous "teaching methods." That's all you need to know about the plot, because that's pretty much all there is to it.

Even so, GTO is hilarious when it's running on all four cylinders, mostly on the strength of Onizuka's craziness. He does everything from beating up his own students to jumping off buildings in order to save them; but what surprised me is that he, the lead character, is quite openly perverted— he becomes a teacher mainly for the girls, in fact. Protagonists are normally, even in anime, modest people: for example, they might secretly enjoy porn, like Hideki from Chobits, but they are ashamed or at least embarrassed if other people discover this. Onizuka has no shame, on the other hand; the show actually opens with the man sitting at the foot of an escalator, gazing up at girls' panties! Onizuka is still a "good man" at heart, of course, but for a lead to act so brazenly is an interesting departure. That nearly all of the other adult males in the show are secretly more lecherous than Onizuka turns this into a subtle point (and improves Onizuka's image by comparison, of course).

GTO is not perfect, however, not by a long shot. In addition to the aforementioned lack of plot, the art and animation are mediocre, and the music is nothing special (aside from the opening themes and two of the ending themes). More importantly, GTO's humor is inconsistent, waning particularly near the end of its 43 episodes. There are serious moments, too, but they don't mesh well enough with the comedy: unlike in other shows whose comedy enhances the rare drama (Azumanga Daioh, for example), in GTO the drama seems disconnected from the comedy, and falters somewhat as a result. Finally, the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying (not surprising for an anime adaptation that ends halfway through the original plot, like Berserk and Twelve Kingdoms do).

Still, Great Teacher Onizuka succeeds overall despite its serious flaws. It's worth watching at least the first season or so; whether you find it entertaining beyond that depends on how much of a liking you've taken to the characters by then. Also, if you watch to the end, you'll very likely want to pick up the manga, which continues past the anime's sudden ending. Finally, because I took too many screencaps, I leave you with "Great Teacher Montage: The Many Faces of GTO."