Great Teacher Onizuka

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Great Teacher Onizuka

GTO manga, volume 1 (English version)
グレート・ティーチャー・オニズカ
(Gurēto Tīchā Onizuka)
Genre Comedy-drama
Manga
Author Tohru Fujisawa
Publisher Japan Kodansha
Demographic Shōnen
Magazine Flag of Japan Weekly Shōnen Magazine
Flag of Sweden Manga Mania
Flag of Norway Manga Mania
Original run 16 May 1997 – 17 April 2002
Volumes 25[1]
TV anime
Director Naoyasu Hanyu
Noriyuki Abe
Studio Studio Pierrot
Network Flag of Japan Animax, Fuji Television
Flag of the United States Flag of Canada Showtime,Anime Selects
Flag of the Philippines Animax, GMA Network
Flag of Malaysia 8TV, Flag of Russia MTV Russia
Original run 30 June 1999 – 24 September 2000
Episodes 43[2]
TV drama
Director Masayuki Suzuki
Network Flag of Japan Fuji Television, Kansai TV
Original run 7 July 1998 – 22 September 1998
Episodes 12 + 1 Special
Live action film
Director Masayuki Suzuki
Released 1999
Runtime 140 minutes

Great Teacher Onizuka (グレート・ティーチャー・オニズカ Gurēto Tīchā Onizuka?), officially abbreviated to GTO, is a shōnen manga, anime, and live-action series created by Tohru Fujisawa. It is the story of Eikichi Onizuka, a 22 year-old ex-bōsōzoku member, and his quest to be the greatest teacher in Japan. GTO is a continuation of Tohru Fujisawa's other manga series Shonan Junai Gumi (lit. "Shōnan True Love Group") and Bad Company. It won the 1998 Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen.[3]

Both the anime and manga have been licensed in North America by Tokyopop.

Contents

[edit] Story

While peeping up girls' skirts at a local shopping mall, Onizuka meets a girl 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 unattractive, but has enough influence over her that she leaps from a second story window and lands in his arms.

Onizuka, seeing this display of a teacher's power over girls, decides to become one himself. In his quest, he discovers three important things:

  1. He has a conscience and a sense of morality. This means taking advantage of impressionable schoolgirls is out...but their unusually attractive mothers are a different matter.
  2. He enjoys teaching and most of the time, he teaches life lessons rather than schoolwork.
  3. He hates the systems of traditional education, especially when they 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 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 school to tame a class that has driven one teacher to a mysterious death, one to nervous breakdown, and one to joining a cult. He embarks on a mission of self-discovery by breaking through to each student one by one, and helping each student to overcome their problems and learn to genuinely enjoy life.

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of Great Teacher Onizuka characters

[edit] Media information

Main article: List of Great Teacher Onizuka media

[edit] Live-action

A 12-episode live-action Japanese television drama was aired, based loosely on the manga. Takashi Sorimachi stars as Onizuka, and Nanako Matsushima as Azusa Fuyutsuki. It is directed by Masayuki Suzuki, with music composed by Takayuki Hattori and the opening song, "Poison", sung by Sorimachi himself. There are several drastic changes from the manga to fit the 12-hour format of the live-action series, such as the following:

  • Nanako Mizuki also studies at the Holy Forest Academy.
  • Uehara Anko does not appear in the live-action; instead, her characteristics are merged into Miyabi Aizawa's character, thus making Miyabi the daughter of the PTA President. Most notably about Miyabi is that she is not nearly as vicious an antagonist to Onizuka as she was in the manga and anime.
  • Ryuji Danma does not appear in the live-action, but rather is combined with Onizuka's police friend, Toshiyuki Saejima, and becomes Ryuji Saejima.
  • Julia Murai, Kunio's mother, conceived Kunio at age 17, instead of 13.
  • Onizuka has his own apartment away from the school, but chooses to sleep at the school during the summer (he states his home has no air conditioning)
  • Yoshiko Uchiyamada, the daughter of Vice-Principal Hiroshi Uchiyamada, has a serious love interest in Onizuka (though not reciprocated).
  • Many of the events in the live-action appear out of sequence to the manga and anime adaptations

Nevertheless, the changes in the live-action accomplishes to capture the spirit of GTO very well. According to Tokyopop, the final episode was the most watched television program ever in Japan.[4]

Thanks to the series, Matsushima is now married to Sorimachi. They first met on the set of GTO. After a long-term relationship, they married in 2001, and in May 2004, she gave birth to their first daughter.

A two-hour television special followed in August 1999, and a theatrical movie in January 2000.

[edit] Anime

Main article: List of Great Teacher Onizuka episodes
 This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (February 2008)

As a result of the popularity of the manga and live-action series, an animated adaptation was developed. It was directed by Noriyuki Abe and Naoyasu Hanyu of Studio Pierrot.

The anime closely follows the manga plot up to volume 14. However, it ran past the story arc of the manga, resulting in a new ending. The main characters are similar to their manga counterparts, but side characters become underdeveloped; some did not appear in the anime at all.[citation needed] Nudity, violence, and perversion were toned down for the anime.[citation needed]

The facial expressions that Onizuka makes were modelled after Sorimachi.[citation needed]

[edit] Pop culture references

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Attempting to be a realistic work of fiction, a great number of cultural references abound in the course of the GTO series:

People & Places

  • Eikichi Onizuka shares his name with Challenger astronaut, Ellison Onizuka.
  • The school where Onizuka teaches at, Seirin Gakuen (Holy Forest Academy), is probably based on the high school of Seikei University, a part of a wider educational institute which teaches from elementary school right through to university level, located in Kichijōji.
  • Headmaster Sakurai refers to Onizuka as "a young Karl Gotch". Gotch was a professional wrestler famous for his trademark German suplex.
  • When Murai makes Onizuka set his hair on fire, he laughs and says "He went up like Michael Jackson! Do the moonwalk!".
  • Onizuka calls Principal Maruyama "Francisco Xavier".
  • Munakata gives away Tomoko's address so that "she'll be as well known as Anna Umemiya".
  • When Onizuka warms up for Fukuroda's swimming contest, he tries to do several clumsy figures in water, including "The Michelle Kwan".
  • Murai, Kusano and Fujiyoshi try to break into the school wearing masks of Yasuhiro Nakasone (with "unsinkable aircraft carrier" written on it), John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Mikhail Gorbachev (the birthmark on his head being shaped like the continent of Asia), respectively. When they are breaking in, they say they have the "heart of Lupin", and sing part of its theme song. Then Murai states, "Let's go Kennedy. And bring Gorby.", while Fujiyoshi says, "Roger, Perestroika!".
  • During the revision for the test, Azusa asks Onizuka which Mongolian warlord conquered China. The correct answer is Kublai Khan; instead, an exhausted Onizuka mistakenly names famous Japanese wrestler, Killer Khan, and singer-songwriter, Chaka Khan.
  • In the chapter title page of volume 12, Onizuka asks Urumi: "Who is sexier: me or Sorimachi?", directly referring to Takashi Sorimachi, who portrays Onizuka in the live-action television series, based on the manga.
  • Right before they leave for Okinawa, Asuza is mistaken for albino singer, Sonoko Suzuki, due to the excessive amount of white make-up she used to cover up her botched makeover.
  • In Okinawa, Anko meets Onizuka, Murai, Fujiyoshi and Kusano disguised as masked punks, and they bring her to a van which has a giant portrait of Seiko Matsuda painted on it.
  • When Onizuka competes in an arm wrestling match against a hundred opponents, he faces the following:
    • A misshapen and obese Suzunosuke Akao, whose throat is "thicker than Kazushige Nagashima's". An unnaturally muscular and red-skinned man, he resembles the monster Red King from the classic tokusatsu series, Ultraman. When Onizuka defeats him, Onizuka shouts, "Look at my Ultraman's power!"
    • Heihachi Mishima from Namco's 3D-fighting game franchise, Tekken.
    • A man with the facial features of a sphinx and screws on its face, resembling a mechanical man, with a boy in the background wearing a round white helmet screaming "Go! Robo!", is a homage to the classic tokusatsu series, Giant Robo.
    • A tall, muscular student wearing an ice hockey mask called Jason, in reference to American horror film character, Jason Voorhees. Onizuka antagonizes his opponent by mistakenly calling him Freddy, in reference to another horror film character, Freddy Krueger.
  • After Onizuka wins the arm wrestling matches, Mayu faints and is sent to the hospital, where a chestburster explodes out of his stomach. It is revealed to be nothing more than a hand puppet, all thanks to Mayu's trickery.
  • When Onizuka wrestles with a dummy depicting Mayu, he crushes it and stands in a wrestler outfit, saying he is Antonio Inoki, another professional wrestler.
  • In both the manga and anime, Onizuka's claims his favourite actress is Nanako Matsushima, who portrays Azusa Fuyutsuki in the live-action television series.
  • In episode 4 of the live-action series, Onizuka briefly considers having Nanako sign up for a teen idol competition, but quickly changes his mind after she sings horribly off-key. Ironically, Kirari, who plays Nanako in the live-action, sang one of the ending themes for the anime.
  • In volume 24 and 25 of the manga, Urumi is seen wearing a University of Notre Dame top.

Manga & anime

  • In the first episode of the anime, Hidero Ohsawa sees Onizuka's eagerness to date teenage schoolgirls. He tells Onizuka, "Take it easy Golden Boy."
  • When Murai tricks Onizuka into wearing bowling balls stuck to his hands with superglue, he calls him Doraemon, due to his round hands, which make him look like titular robot cat. Onizuka later completes this look with Doraemon written in kanji on his forehead, painted whiskers on his cheeks and a helicopter fan (Doraemon's trademark gadget) on his hair, as he goes rescue Murai, Kusano and Fujiyoshi from a group of misfits. He changes his disguise again, impersonating Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, with the same Ursa Major shaped scars (drawn with a marker) on his bare chest, Kenshiro in kanji written on his forehead, and swollen veins drawn on his face. In the anime, he adds the reference further by executing Kenshiro's trademark move Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken, complete with his Bruce Lee-like yells, against the misfits.
  • When Onizuka investigates a female teacher who joined a cult after her students bullied her, he discovers her overweight, eating junk food, and watching Speed Racer on television. That same cult shows its members praying to a shrine with an SDF-1 Macross figurine.
  • Onizuka makes Tomoko dress up as Cutey Honey for a talent audition.
  • Onizuka cosplayed as Devilman during a class.
  • When Onizuka tries to cheat at a pachinko game, the machine he uses has a Lupin III-theme.
  • When Onizuka suggests a way of making money for the Okinawa trip, he suggests to go to Mount Akagi and dig the lost treasure of the Tokugawas. His students reply "What do you think this is, the Kindaichi Mysteries?"
  • There are several references to Initial D, a manga based on street racing:
    • After Onizuka and his students escape the police in a frantic car chase, Fujiyoshi says it was "just like in Speed". Onizuka adds that "the best drivers always get away. Don't you read Initial D?"
    • When Onizuka drifts the Mercedes-Benz SL that Mayu gave him as a gift, he wears a headband labelled "Onizuka Tofu Shop (For Private Use)" , similar to the sticker on the side of the protagonist's car in the Initial D manga.
    • When Uchiyamada was chasing Onizuka, he was drifting with his Toyota Cresta. Onizuka remarked, "You're too old to play Initial D!". In that same chase, Uchiyamada passes a Nissan Skyline GT-R, whose driver comments that they have just been passed by the "Phantom Cresta", another reference made to the protagonist's car in the Initial D manga.
  • There are several references to Neon Genesis Evangelion, a popular science-fiction anime:
    • When Onizuka rounds up a biker gang to scare a student straight, he is wearing a mask with a swastika and the symbol of the SEELE organization from Evangelion.
    • Noburu has several Evangelion posters decorating his room.
    • When Onizuka wins the swimming contest against Fukuroda, he says he wants to buy Evangelion trading cards with the winnings.
    • After shaking hands with Azusa, Teshigawara wears white gloves and glasses, like Gendo Ikari, and also fixes up his glasses on his nose and grins like the character.
    • When Miyabi dyes her hair light blue, Onizuka believes she tried to look like Rei Ayanami.
    • In the story involving Urumi selling Myabi and her friends to a group of older men for sex, one of their bondism toys has the SEELE symbol painted on its headrest.
  • There are several references to Mobile Suit Gundam, a vast, Japanese mecha franchise of anime, models and games:
    • Upon visiting the Nerima Ward, while searching for Ms. Kahara, he bears witness to "alien prayer verses", which cultists chant. The Gundam references include:
    • In Okinawa, Urumi is forced to share her room with three Gundam otakus. They talk non-stop about it and even call Urumi, Sayla Mass, one of the characters in the first Gundam anime. They even point out that their room number, 0080, is a reference to Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. When Urumi confronts Onizuka about her room assignment, she complains that she had dreams about a boy named Heero, the protagonist from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing. In the "haunted house" game, they impersonate various Gundam characters and wear Gundams V-fins, where one of the otakus dressed himself like the WD-M01 Turn A Gundam.
    • Coincidentally, in the GTO anime, Kikuchi's voice actor is Hikaru Midorikawa, who also did Heero Yuy's voice in Gundam Wing. Kotono Mitsuishi, Urumi's voice actor, has appeared in three Gundam series herself: After War Gundam X, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Onizuka's voice actor, Wataru Takagi, has also appeared in Gundam X.
    • Four voice actors in the anime had previously voiced a leading role in a Gundam series. Toru Furuya, Teshigawara's voice actor, portrayed Amuro Ray from the original series. Tomokazu Seki, Kunio Murai's voice actor, did Mobile Fighter G Gundam's Domon Kasshu. Midorikawa did Gundam Wing's Heero Yuy and Takagi as Garrod Ran in Gundam X.
    • When Urumi makes her first run of school vandalism, she is confronted by a trio of female upperclassman, who are collectively known as the Black Stars, a play on the Black Tri-Stars, while having their respective names (Gaia, Masha and Ortega). They also bear plenty of physical resemblances to the characters, with their dark skin and their notably wide loose socks, which are described as Dom-styled.
    • When he and Noboru set out to rescue Urumi from her attempted suicide, Onizuka is wearing a t-shirt with the text "Mono-Eye Series" and a Zeon cross etched in.
    • Among Onizuka's belongings that were trashed by Misuzu Daimon is an action figure of Char Aznable's MS-14S Gelgoog Commander Type, complete with its trademark beam naginata and shield, and a Sailor Moon figurine. Onizuka's voice actor portrayed Rubeus, an antagonist in Sailor Moon R
  • The ex-students attending the arm-wrestling tournament say that Onizuka is like Cyborg 009, like "Space Apeman Gort", adding "so where the hell is Spectreman?" (Gort is a villain from the sentai Spectreman series) and "anyone read the old Tetsujin 28 comics?"
  • When Murai suspects his mother is going to marry an elder man with balding curly hair, he nicknames him Professor Elefun, a character from the Astro Boy franchise. Later, Kusano even makes fun of Murai, saying that if his mother married "Professor Elefun, that would have made him Astro Boy".
  • In one of his rests at the hospital, Onizuka rolls on a hospital bed on wheels screaming, "I am Ultraman!"
  • Shun Oguri, the actor who portrayed Noboru Yoshikawa in the live-action, also played as Uchiyama Haruhiko in Gokusen. In GTO, he is the one being bullied, but in Gokusen, he is one of the class bullies.
  • Nao Kadena's nickname, the Queen of Hakosuka, is derived from the car she used to race: a Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R, which is frequently called Hakosuka (ハコスカ) by fans. Hako（ハコ）means Box in Japanese, and suka（スカ）is short for Skyline (スカイライン; Sukairain).

Film & Television

  • In episode nine of the anime, Onizuka wears the same jumpsuit that Bruce Lee wore in Game of Death.
  • When Fujiyoushi and Kusano are looking for Onizuka in a movie theater, The Ring can be seen playing on the screen.
    • During the "haunted house" challenge in Okinawa, when the Gundam otakus find and watch "the tape", Azusa, disguised as Sadako, scares them. Incidentally, the actress who plays her in the live-action, Nanako Matsushima, played the protagonist in the original Japanese versions of The Ring and Ring 2.
  • Murai goes to watch a Jaws movie with a young girl called Fukada.
  • Urumi tricks Miyabi and her two friends into being seized as sexual maids for horny masked sadomasochistic clients. The clients wear masks of different color mimicking the visors of the Sentai series Himitsu Sentai Goranger, and call themselves the same names as this series' heroes.

Video Games

  • Onizuka is seen to be playing Dance Dance revolution in an arcade.
  • Murai is seen playing an arcade fighting game against a bear named Kuma. Kuma is a character that was first introduced to the popular 3D-fighting game series from Namco, Tekken.
  • When Kusano shows up tired at class, he claims he played Onimusha all night, although he doesn't "have a PlayStation 2". Onizuka is also seen playing Ape Escape without an analog pad.
  • When Onizuka brings a mentally beat-down Miyabi to Tomoko's house, Miyabi overhears Onizuka and Tomoko yelling in a way that leads her to believe Onizuka is forcing Tomoko to mess around against her will. When she bursts into the room, she finds them playing Biohazard, the Japanese name for Resident Evil.
  • Several references to the Final Fantasy series are made in the manga, including Onizuka "borrowing" a copy of Final Fantasy VII from someone's desk in the faculty room of Holy Forest, and a cameo appearance of Selphie Tilmitt, one of the main characters in Final Fantasy VIII.
  • Yoshikawa mentions to Onizuka that he had cleared Wild Arms 3 three times.

Music

  • Punk rock music is sometimes referenced throughout the series. At one point, Onizuka sings the Ramones' "Rock & Roll High School", and later, Ryuji sings The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks".
  • Onizuka is depicted wearing an Atari Teenage Riot t-shirt. In the anime, he is seen wearing an "All Rightz Reserved T-Shirt".
  • In the anime, Onizuka is seen wearing a rat outfit while confronting Anko's mother. The costume bears a resemblance to the outfits from the Bloodhound Gang music video, "Bad Touch".

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Great Teacher Onizuka (manga) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia. Accessed 2007-02-12.
  2. ^ Great Teacher Onizuka (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia. Accessed 2007-02-12.
  3. ^ Joel Hahn. Kodansha Manga Awards. Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
  4. ^ Tokyopop, Archive copy at the Internet Archive. Retrieved 2007-02-11.

[edit] External links