Great Teacher Onizuka

Great Teacher Onizuka, abbreviated as GTO, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tooru Fujisawa. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from January 1997 to February 2002, with its chapters collected in 25 volumes. The story focuses on 22-year-old ex- member Eikichi Onizuka, who becomes a teacher at a private middle school, Holy Forest Academy, in Tokyo, Japan. It is a standalone sequel to Fujisawa's earlier manga series Shonan Junai Gumi and Bad Company, both of which focus on Onizuka's life before becoming a teacher.

Due to the popularity of the manga, several adaptations of GTO were created, including a 12-episode Japanese television drama running from July to September 1998; a 1999 live-action film directed by Masayuki Suzuki, and a 43-episode anime television series produced by Pierrot, which aired on Fuji TV from June 1999 to September 2000. A second live-action series aired in Japan during 2012, and two more in 2014.

A sequel manga series, titled GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from June 2009 to September 2011. Another sequel, titled GTO: Paradise Lost, began in Weekly Young Magazine in April 2014. Both the anime and manga were licensed in North America by Tokyopop. The anime series was re-licensed by Discotek Media in 2012. The manga is licensed by Kodansha USA.

The manga has had over 50 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history. In 1998, Great Teacher Onizuka won the 22nd Kodansha Manga Award in the category.

Plot

Eikichi Onizuka is a 22-year-old ex-gang member who wants to lose his virginity. While peeping up girls' skirts at a local shopping mall, Onizuka meets a schoolgirl who agrees to go out on a date with him. Onizuka's attempt to sleep with her fails when her current "boyfriend", her teacher, shows up at the love hotel they are in and asks her to return to him. The teacher is old and ugly, but has sufficient influence over her that she leaps from a second-story window and lands in his arms.

Onizuka, upon seeing this display of a teacher's power over girls, decides to become a teacher himself. He earns his teaching degree, just barely, at a second-rate college. In his quest, he develops a conscience. This means taking advantage of impressionable schoolgirls is out of the question, but their unusually attractive mothers are a different matter. He enjoys teaching and, most of the time, he teaches life lessons rather than routine schoolwork. He hates the system of traditional education, especially when other teachers and administrators have grown ignorant and condescending to students and their needs. With these realizations, he sets out to become the greatest teacher ever, using his own unique brand of philosophy and the ability to do nearly anything when under enough pressure. He is hired as a long-shot teacher by a privately operated middle school in Kichijōji to tame a class that has driven one teacher to a mysterious death, another to a nervous breakdown, and one other to join a cult. He embarks on a mission of self-discovery by reaching out to each student one by one to help them overcome their problems and learn to enjoy life. He uses methods that are unorthodox, illegal, and life-threatening, yet he manages to succeed in educating and opening up his students.

Production

When writing GTO, Fujisawa was influenced by the writing style of Kōhei Tsuka. The series was originally intended to run for 10 volumes; however, it was extended at the request of the publisher. Fujisawa began to run out of characters as a result. When faced with writing block he would write stories without Onizuka. Onizuka's first name, Eikichi, was taken from musician Eikichi Yazawa. When developing Onizuka's character for the series, Fujisawa sought to incorporate real character traits from Japanese gangs often referred to as "Yankees". Onizuka's look is modelled on such gang members and was not intended to convey an "American look". Onizuka acts tough and confident but is actually shy and lacking in confidence to follow through on some of his desires. He is a simple character that stands by his own reasoning and principles and has his own conscience. Fujisawa gave him the viewpoint that you should take responsibility for your actions, something he sees as important.

Onizuka's role in the school is to provide a bridge between the students and teachers. The character of Fuyutsuki reflects the point of view of the average teacher. Fujisawa built the series on his own school experience where teachers were mostly focused only on a good performance record rather than the teaching itself. However, he was able to take an interest in mathematics because of the approach of his teacher.[3] Tatsuya Egawa has claimed that GTO plagiarized his debut manga, Be Free!.[4]

Media

Reception

By November 2007, the manga had over 50 million copies in circulation.[56] Great Teacher Onizuka won the 22nd Kodansha Manga Award for the category in 1998.[57]

In Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson referred to the manga as "shameless, frequently sexist and totally hilarious". He gave it four stars out of four, praising its imagery, detailed art, and "smutty, pop culture-laden dialogue". He added that in its best moments, the manga "goes beyond the level of an Adam Sandler movie and approaches true social satire".[58]

The 1998 live-action series had an average audience share of 28.5% with the final episode recording a rate of 35.7%. The final episode was the eighth-most-watched broadcast in the Kantō region during 1998.[59][60] The 2000 live-action film sequel grossed ¥1.32 billion at the box office, becoming the tenth-highest-grossing film of the year.[61]

In The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy noted the anime's use of computer graphics for cloud and water effects to cover up "the cheap TV animation". They called the 1998 live-action adaptation "the quintessential GTO, with its handsome loner [protagonist] fighting injustices on his motorcycle like an educational lawman" but still found the anime adaptation to have "considerable bite" due to its animated origins allowing for "slightly more violence and menace than its prime-time live-action counterpart."[24]

In 2008, Russian network 2x2 came under investigation by Rossvyazkomnadzor, the government watchdog, for allegedly promoting "child pornography, sexual aberrations, violence and cruelty" by broadcasting the GTO anime.[62][63][64]

External links

• Studio Pierrot website