Customer Reviews

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka, Vol. 1

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great Teacher Onizuka, or GTO, for short, is one of the most popular mangas going, with over 37 million copies sold worldwide. I wouldn't really expect that, seeing as how it focuses on the life of a teacher. If you can imagine a cross between Marlon Brando as the Wild One and the beatnik attitude of Jack Kerouac along with the cool hipness of Japanese youth as a teacher. While being brillantly subversive, GTO succeeds as both entertainment and satire of the teaching establishment, much as Chaucer lampooned the Church in his Canterbury Tales.

Eikichi Onizuka is the 22 year old ex-leader of a biker gang who has found out that he's not going to be able to goof off his whole life. He has to find a job. Having a fetish for young girls in uniform, he decides to become a teacher. He finds out that his impulsive decision is going to take a lot more courage than he thought. This first volume is basically his origin story as he is disappointed by his dreams of becoming something great and having to reevaluate his life as he begins his teacher training. It also begins a pattern that will continue in the following books, namely that he has to use his wits to escape the plots of hateful students and a vice-principal who would like nothing more than to fire him.

This book was great. What can I say? If you are a teacher, you'll really get a kick out of seeing a cartoon character fulfill your wishes. Who doesn't want to karate kick their bonehead students sometimes? While Onizuka's attraction to high school girls seems lurid, we find out that he becomes overwhelmed with trying to help his students rather than wanting to seduce them in the end. I think it's just a Japanese thing to be attracted to girls in school uniforms. I think anyone with a sense of humor and semi-lewdness would find these manga entertaining and funny. I would especially recommend it to teachers.

GTO is quite unlike any comic (manga or otherwise) that I've ever read. It starts with an unlikely premise: that a 22-year old former gang member and street-brawling ruffian decides one day to become not just a teacher, but the greatest High School teacher in Japan. His reason: to be close to all those nubile young High School girls. Not exactly the most admirable or likable character to come down the pike, but there's a lot of humor to be found in the "fish out of water" aspects of the story, and by the end of volume one I found myself warming to him. He's a letch, but he's a harmless letch, easily manipulated by the girls he lusts after, and as the story progresses you come to see that he has a heart. He may turn out to be a great teacher after all.
I'm really looking forward to future volumes of GTO.

"GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka)" is a fun comic, with more heart than I expected. The premise, a tough, go-nowhere 22 year old bosozoku deciding to become a High School teacher in order to pick up girls, at first seems like a recipe for fan service and lewd humor. And it is. However, like the best of Japanese comics, this rather sketchy plot develops into something a little more personal and respectable. Onizuka, as he can relate to his pupils and is a tough guy in his own right, becomes "Great Teacher Onizuka."

The art is great, and flows easily between two distinct styles, a classic Japanese cartoon style and a more expressive, violent style in some parts. The characters are fun and multi-dimensional. I can see why this series is so popular in Japan.

Also, this is a comic where my experience teaching in the Japanese school system has richened the outcome. I "get" several of the jokes that I might have missed before, and I recognize the stereotypes. Good fun all around, and I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series.

Tokyo Pop are know for quality, but GTO just blows every thing else away. The story is good, the art work is top class and it makes you laugh, but remains semi-believable. Tohru Fujisawa deserves so much respeck for both this and the rest of the GTO series. I would recommend this to everyone,I picked Vol. 1 up on a hunch and soon became a huge fan. If you like any manga and haven't read this you really have to. You will be left at the point you have to get (The 4-star rated by me and that's the worst!) Vol. 2. Get it now!

GTO is one of the freshest stories I have had the pleasure to read. I have the first three volumes of the tankoubon and I think it is a great mix of interesting premise, good characters, and a very fresh visual style, which I guess could be called realistic expressionism (Especially when you get a scene with an expressive Onizuka or Uchiyamada).

If you want to read some good manga with shonen elements and suprisingly well-used shoujo sensibilities that doesn't need magic, or robots or constipated overly powerful martial artists, GTO is the best bet.

Earth shaking. Booty shaking. Think Archie for the Manga Generation and then some - that represents just one facet of this mindbending series. I picked this up on a whim but never expected how it would unfold. GTO # 1 is unassuming for the most part and as a series, truly twists and turns and reaches higher and higher - while maintaining its characters. Tohru Fujisawa is a master storyteller, who isn't afraid to use self referential, toilet humor, schoolgirl cliches, panty jokes, you name it - but keeps it relevant. Each volume is a cliffhanger which is what Manga is all about...Tohru, I salute you.

This a book for everyone that doesn't mind a LOT of sexual humor. Eichiki Onizuka is a down in the dumps punk who spends all day looking up girls' skirts. When he finds out that high school girls want their teachers, he decides to be a teacher for the love and sex. When he turns a groups of O (lowest level of education) group kids into hard working students, he decides he really wants to be a teacher. The humor is just perfect and Onizuka has more faces than Digimon (I like the gritty style most). The only reason this got a 4 was because it got too dramatic sometimes, like in the Happiness in a Six-Mat Apartment
story. =GEt this now.

This is the best manga ever written. The premice may sound questionable to you manga lovers out there,I know it does not have any magic but you will survive. Trust me buy it. Even if you have never read a manga before it may change your life. With its amazingly funny toilet humor and awsome well rounded characters. So just buy it, its a very quick read and very funny.

Being a manga collector I can honestly say that this is one of the best there is. You get a real feel for the characters and has a heartfelt story. If you are in to manga and you want to read something not good, but great, then this series is a must. I can't recommend it enough.

I've read this series online already but I enjoyed it so much that it's truly deserving of being physically bought.Of course it's only the first volume so the plot hasn't quite gotten far enough for those who want it. Nevertheless if you like GTO then it's worth the slow plot of the first couple volumes to buy.The art is also awesome.