Tokyopop has licensed FUNimation to repackage and distribute some of their older series. This is a great idea as the shows are getting much better distribution on store shelves and these new sets are priced much more competitively. The latest Tokyopop/FUNimation release is GTO - Great Teacher Onizuka, a series about a former gang member who is now determined to become the greatest teacher in Japan. This is a really fun show that is easy to get lost in. Onizuka is crass, not very smart, and has a very unconventional style but its hard not to root for the guy. This set contains the first half of the series and the content is identical to the original Viz volumes.

Eikichi Onizuka was once the leader of a motorcycle gang, and his exploits with them are still being talking about in Japan, but at 22, Eikichi decides that he needs more in life and decides to become a high school teacher. (Mainly in the hopes of dating some 16-year-old hottie.) As the series starts, Onizuka has been assigned a school to do his student teaching. The class he's assigned is rough and rowdy to the extreme.

The first thing they do is get one of the girls to seduce Eikichi, something that doesn't take too much effort since the teacher's still a virgin. Just as she's taking her clothes off however, some boys jump into his apartment and start taking pictures. They tell him that unless he forks over some serious cash, they'll release the photos and his career will be ruined.

Most people would panic at this point, but not Onizuka. He follows the boys until he catches up with them. They've been captured by a motorcycle gang for trespassing, but when Onizuka arrives....he helps torture the youths. He gives the gang some great ideas for ways to abuse the boys, much to their chagrin. Eventually they let them go, and the next day the entire class, having heard how ruthless Onizuka was, is much more respectful to their teacher.

Passing his student teaching with flying colors is fine, but when Onizuka forgets to take the public teachers' civil service exam and without it can't get a job in a public school. So he's limited to private institutions. He eventually lands a job as the prestigious Holy Forest Academy after the chairman is impressed with the way Onizuka tells off vice-principle Uchiyamada for berating a student.

This starts a long battle between Uchiyamada and Onizuka. Not only does Uchiyamada dislike the new teacher because of his flamboyant style, but also because Onizuka happens to destroy the vice-principle's brand new and much beloved Toyota Cresta. He does this saving a student's life, but that doesn't seem to matter to Uchiyamada.

Onizuka is once again given the toughest class in the school, class 3-4. To make matters worse they are all middle school students, none of them old enough for the teacher to hit on. Having dealt with a tough class in student teaching will serve him well however, because these kids are much worse than anything he's seen yet. They take pride in getting teachers to quit or driving them crazy, but they haven't come up against anyone like Eikichi Onizuka yet.

Over the course of these 23 episodes Eikichi has to deal with several problems, just about all of them brought on by his class. He has to discover who is photoshopping his head onto porno images and plastering all over the school, stop school bully Anko Uehara from tormenting a student or two, and keep his job when vice-principle Uchiyamada is looking for any excuse to let him go. When all else fails, the class calls in the big guns, a girl with a genius-level IQ named Urumi Kanzaki. She hasn't met the teacher yet that she can't break, and it looks like Onizuka may have met his match.

This is a really fun show. Not closely connected to reality, but it's easy to ignore that. One of the great aspects of the show is that Onizuka isn't perfect. He's an idiot who makes a lot of his own trouble, like the time he doused the head of the PTA with water from his trunk when dressed as the head of an elephant. The trunk, of course, obscenely located between his legs. It's hilarious to hear vice-principle Uchiyamada proclaim again and again "Who comes to school dressed like an elephant?" It's even funnier because the vice-principle has a point. The running gag about Uchiyamada's poor Cresta being constantly destroyed is also a cause for laughter.

The show is filled with a lot of humor, but it's not a strict comedy. There are dramatic moments too, and these are what give the show its heart. One of the most touching story arcs involves Tomoko, a not-very-bright girl with over developed breasts. When she accidentally messes up one of Miyabi's plans to get Onizuka fired, she's ostracized by Miyabi's gang and everyone starts tormenting her and calling her "cow" because of her large chest. When Onizuka notices the treatment he comes up with an idea that not only gives Tomoko her self esteem back, but also the admiration of the rest of the class.

FUNimation has repackaged the original Tokyopop discs in a foldout case. I'm not too fond of that style, and to make matters worse there are two DVDs in each section, partially overlapping each other. I can't see why the just didn't present the five discs in three slimline cases. This first set includes 23 episodes.

Audio:

Viewers have the choice between the original Japanese audio track and an English dub, both in stereo. I mainly watched the show with the Japanese track, but would occasionally watch an episode with the English track to check it out. While I'm glad that there is a dub track, I had a hard time getting into this one. Some of the voice actors used fake sounding voices for some of the supporting characters and this started to bug me after a while. The gym teacher and the Diet member's daughter, Oda, were particularly grating. Aside from that the show sounded fine. There weren't many splashy audio effects and there wasn't much use made of the front soundstage but since this show is mainly dialog based that's to be expected.

Video:

This series is presented in full frame, which is how it originally aired. The series dated back to 1999 and the image looks great. The lines are tight and sharp, the colors are solid and the blacks are nice and deep. There is a bit of aliasing present, especially when the camera pans over fine lines, but it isn't distracting.

Extras:

There are a fair number of extras scattered over these five discs. They include a clean opening and closing animation, the original Japanese credits, conceptual and production art galleries, and the eye-catches for the show (the static images before and after the commercials). While I wish they would have left the eye-catches in the show where they belong, it was nice that they included them on the discs. There's also an interview with GTP manga creator Tohru Fujisawa. Overall a very nice set of bonus items.

Final Thoughts:

GTO is one of those shows that are just a lot of fun to watch. Seeing Onizuka overcome the traps that the students lay for him is really entertaining and some of the running gags are hilarious. I just zipped through these episodes, and when the fifth disc was finished I was disappointed there wasn't more. Do yourself a favor and check this series out. Highly Recommended.

Special thanks to Jesse P. for catching a bone-headed blunder on my part.