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Description
From Tokyopop: Meet Eikichi Onizuka, a 22-year-old ex-biker. He's crude, foul-mouthed, and has a split-second temper. His unlikely goal: to be the Greatest High School Teacher in the World! Of course, the only reason he wants to be a teacher is so he can try to score with the hot students... Before he can become a full instructor, he's got to work as a student teacher to earn his credentials. Onizuka may think he's the toughest guy on campus, but when he meets his class full of bullies, blackmailers, and scheming sadists, he'll have to prove it.
GTO won the 1998 Kodansha Manga Award for shounen.
It took me at least a day to finish Bad Company and this manga. It's so good that the morning I woke up, I took my phone and continued reading GTO (I started reading Bad Company around 7-8pm the night before). I sure do envy them, such an enjoyable school life. But I think it has enough panchira to last the rest of my life (lol). The friendship though, is on a whole different level than what I know and had. I wish I read this back in high school for it might be the catalyst to enjoy high school life and do more enjoyable things. But damn, this manga sure make me feel I could go through high school all over again. This manga though made me feel how awful the people I called friends back then. But I had read GTO back then, I'm not sure if I would be able to take the level of ecchi. Still, I think Fujisawa Tohru-sensei is a genius, man. Genius!
It's hard to give an unbiased opinion on GTO, simply cause I love it too much!>
Don't listen to what people say about how the characters are static, boring, unsophisticated. One thing you have to keep in mind this was a shonen manga back in the day. Another thing It's not true. It's an honest story about how a feared ex-delinquent, stumbled upon a teaching career (due to a stupid misconception), and actually falling in love with his career, and for the first time in his life he (arguably) gets his shit together for the sake of his students. He's dumb, lacks common sense, and technically by our standards, lacks everything we expect to see in a teacher, but he has compassion- something that we now believe teacher's lack. He goes through the depths of hell to help his students and educates them on something more that's important than school work. He teaches them the importance of authenticity.
I love fujisawa tohru's works, my cousins used to have all his series, so I grew up reading them. I have to say GTO is by far my favourite, and it ultimately helped inspire me to become a teacher too (or atleast I'm on track to). It also give you (a dated, but arguably still functional) insight on delinquent culture in Japan, and explores why students abandon education & become what society deems to be "dysfunctional". The series also gives insight to how the institutional structure of the education system are slowly failing, and how we should revitalize it (in this case this job goes to Onizuka).
I honestly love this series, and I believe it's a must read for everybody. I grew up kind of like a delinquent, but honestly my teachers, and this series altogether helped me a lot. I believe everyone should, for the very least, give this series a try (like first 15 chapters and everything just starts moving). I also hope for those new readers to have a great laugh and enjoy his stupid antics, and overall perhaps find it just and inspiring as i do.
ok, i didn't read any of the reviews before reading this manga. i only knew the anime (which i personally loved) and thought i'd give it a shot.
yeah, im pretty stunned now how this mangagot such high ratings.
1: the art. ok, this was quite some time ago (1997) but hell this is some crappy manga style. normally my eyes stop hurting after a few chapters, but this feeling of smashing my display continued on till the end. (stop bitching about "then don't read it if you dont like it" if you start following a story you want to know the ending...)
2. the characters. hm, except this 3-4 mains the charcters were only plain. once their part was over nobody missed them. onizukas character was kind of... strange. thats probably all there is to say about the characters.
3. the story. somebody tell me when they found this thing called story. its only about a teacher who would be best of if he would quietly sit behind a desk and listen to what adults tell him.
so yeah. i found the anime was quite amusing and had few parts to laught your ass of, but when i read the manga the good reputation i had of GTO was crushed.
Among the army of good comedy Mangas out there, GTO holds a well deserved position in my top 5. (AND believe me, that means I loved it !) I love the characters (especially Onizuka of course <3), I love the seriousness amongst the comedy, I love the hilarious personalities & situations !
This manga had the best comedy out of any manga I've read so far. (which amounts to about 150 series) Onizuka's "teachings" lead to the most ridiculous situations anyone could get into. It also touches some more serious problems and presents them in an understandable, comedic way without making them less severe.
Minus points for some minor plotholes and the ridiculous and lacking ending. And the sometimes forced plot creation.
Aside from the Japanese craziness this manga is very good. Onizuka is insane to the level you just have to like him. The whole student loves teacher (and vice versa) thing is distrubing, but oh well.
One of my favorite manga all times. Some people here really fail at grasping a bigger picture on what GTO is really about , and what hidden message Tohru Fujisawa sensei wants to deliver. In short, reading GTO equals reading real life situation on what happened on japanese modern culture, and how old and young generation doesn't synchronize each other, and whats going on the school life everyday, and whats in the mind of the younger people, and old people. Some taboo subject are explained in here in really detailed yet funny and exciting way. In short, GTO is about slice of life and comedy with purpose. I repeat it again, comedy with a purpose, with something to deliver into your brain. Not like eechi gag manga, whose comedy seems getting really old , and have no meaning at all.
Note: If you are the type who looks manga for romance, love triangle bullshit,graphic whore, lack imagination, fail at grasping a bigger picture, or taking everything too literal, this is not a manga for you.
Frankly, I didn't really enjoy GTO, and I'm not sure why everyone praises this manga to the skies. The first five chapters were horribly boring; kind of like reading a story about a loser who wasn't good at anything, and that's no fun at all. It was then entertaining and slightly addictive for some hundred chapters after I manged to plough through the beginning, but then it became... just... eh. I started to not care very much about any of the characters anymore, and it got awfully repetitive.
I really don't have anything against Onizuka - his near immortality, if nothing else, is funny - but he's the only interesting one of the bunch. Everyone else either supports/hates him blindly (if they're teachers), or loathes him and then ends up liking him (if they're students). Brilliant problem children also abound. And honestly, it seems that for a prestigious school, they have a remarkable lack of good teachers (who don't engage in peeping up skirts), and that the manga would have been better for a little teacher-sympathy. Was I the only one who kinda felt sorry for the principal? I mean, the guy was just pathetic enough to make you feel bad for laughing at him, and then he never catches a break throughout the whole manga. Overall, it had more of the feel of a delinquent school to me, not a prestigious private school.
Also, the art just didn't sit well with me. I'm not usually very picky with art; in fact, I like realistic art. However, GTO's art (especially when people are making faces), is actually kind of... creepy. I kept wanting to punch anyone who was being drawn with a pervy face. It's kinda crowded, too, and I had trouble telling the women apart. Generally art grows on me the longer I read, but I was seriously a hundred chapters in and it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Overall, I think it would've been a cool manga if it was shorter, but there are plenty of teacher mangas that were more entertaining than GTO. The plus points were that Onizuka had his cool moments and I rather liked the romance between the little nerdboy and the pretty girl. Other than that, I'm with Grumpy and Alphagulp (we could start a club! =D).
Yeah... the beginning made it seem like the entire focus of the series would be about the "ecchi" or "fan-service" factor, but that is totally not the case.
Through some shape/form, Fujisawa Tohru is able to mix in comedy, romance, drama, and a bit of fan-service perfectly (I'm not a fan of excessive ecchi, which the beginning kind of implied for the entire series). There were a few moments where too many things were going on, but I was still enthralled and willing to read on.
Also... AMAZING character development. You see several characters that you grow to love/hate that change into something new. Supposed "side stories" meshed in with the main plot that they didn't even seem like side stories at all.
Not very realistic, but most of the morals it expresses are true. Teachers that are able to place a lasting impression on you are truly true teachers (truly true... lol). In Onizuka's case, it might me a little over-exaggereated, but it was still quite the enjoyable read.
I highly recommend this series. Although I haven't read too many series just yet, I try to make a "10/10" a rating for mangas that deserve it. Out of the 30-50 that I've read so far, only 4-5 have placed such a impression on me.
There's really only one word to describe this manga and it's called Epic. Just too good of a read to put down after reading one volume. I practically ran a marathon on this manga from volume 1 to the end, Onizuka is just so funny !
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