YMMV / Great Teacher Onizuka

• Anvilicious: The Teshigawara arc reminds us multiple times that Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse and that you should always take responsibility for your actions. Though in all fairness, Teshigawara really wasn't getting the message through his head the first time.
• Archive Panic: GTO has 207 manga chapters, and if you want to read everything in chronological order, there's also the 10-chapter Origins Episode Bad Company and 267 chapters of GTO: The Early Years to read first. Then there's the Interquel GTO: Shonan 14 Days, which runs for 70 chapters, and the ongoing sequel GTO: Paradise Lost, currently at 133 chapters. And the The Early Years spinoff Shonan Seven^note 46 chapters; however, Onizuka doesn't appear in it, it's just set at the same school he attended.
  • And then there's the 43-episode anime adaptation, the live-action adaptation^note 12 episodes and 1 special, the 1999 live-action film, the second live-action adaptation^note 11 episodes and 3 specials, the third live-action adaptation^note 4 episodes, and the fourth live-action^note 11 episodes. And then there's the 5 OVAs for Shonan Junai Gumi^note 52 minutes each, the live-action for that^note 5 episodes, and a second live-action on Amazon Prime. AND the 1998 live-action film of Bad Company, which seems to have no official subtitled release.
  • Saejima and Ryuji also got their own spinoffs, Ino-Head Gargoyle (39 chapters) and GTR: Great Transporter Ryuji (10 chapters).
• Awesome Music:
  • The first opening theme, Driver's High by L'arc en Ciel.
  • "In a world where we can't ever say what's in our heart, POISON..."
• Cargo Ship: At times the only thing that seems to prevent Uchiyamada from marrying his Cresta is the unfortunate fact that it's kinda sorta... unconventional.
• Contested Sequel: 14 Days in Shonan and Paradise Lost are often compared unfavorably to the original series.
• Crazy Is Cool: Onizuka is prone to Comedic Sociopathy and Tough Love, but will do anything to protect his students, up to and including Fast-Roping from a fucking blimp through a hotel room window, jumping off the roof of the school at least half a dozen times, and driving his motorcycle off an unfinished overpass, with one of his students on it too. His antics make him popular with his students (once he wins them over) and cause no end of headaches for the vice principal and most other teachers.
• Ending Fatigue: General consensus is that the manga really should have ended after the Teshigawara arc.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Onizuka and Urumi, at least as far as the majority of the Western fanbase first introduced to the series through GTO is concerned. The pairing tends to get more support due to the opinion that Urumi has more of a developed personality, while Fuyutsuki too obviously fills in the role of obligatory love interest.
  • Ayame and returning Love Interest Shinomi from Shonan 14 Days join the fray, with the advantage of being the same age as Onizuka rather than a minor.
• Fridge Logic: Think about the last middle schooler you saw. Now picture them pregnant, living alone, and holding a job. How exactly would a disowned 13 year old rent an apartment without a credit history, raise a child by herself, and in the most expensive city in the world, all with no outside help or child services intervention? Either Japan has the world's greatest and most beneficial welfare system, she had the world's nicest landlord, or the writers are greatly exaggerating for dramatic purposes.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: GTO is loved in the US and in Europe, however Shonan Jun'ai Gumi sold better in Japan.
• Les Yay: Tomoko with Miyabi and Urumi. One of the inside sketches for Volume 20 has Urumi playing the Pocky game with a blushing Tomoko.
• Memetic Mutation: 'Worried Uchiyamada', the go-to reaction picture for moments where you realize you forgot something that may as well ruin your day.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • After her setting up three classmates (no matter how huge bitches they were) to be gang-raped by several old perverts with strange fetishes, it's hard to view Urumi as a positive character. To a reader. In-universe she doesn't even get called out for this.
  • Shonan's mayor from 14 Days. His debut moment? Making a policy that takes children from shelters such as White Swan, unwanted and/or abandoned children, mind you, and taking them back to their parents who either don't want them, as is the case with Miko and Riko, or abusive monsters like Sakurako's father. His reason for doing this? To rack up votes from housewives.
    • Also from 14 Days, Seiya's mother abandoned him for her boyfriend who threatened to hit her if she didn't stop Seiya from hitting him and pinned the blame on her for Seiya trying to kill him over his abuse and did nothing to help her flesh and blood from being beat up by said boyfriend in front of her. Riko and Miko's mother kept trying to get rid of them and committed suicide in the end because she didn't want to have the responsibility to look after them and their father didn't want it either. And then there's Sakurako's father. It all but makes Onizuka's message at the end of the Seiya arc the more powerful.
• Nightmare Fuel: Onizuka is mistakenly forced into a marriage with a Kuchisake-Onna; her family share the same trait of a Stepford Smiler with saw teeth. Onizuka also encounters one in Okinawa, though it was a young girl and actually quite nice.
• Sequel Displacement/Even Better Sequel:
  • Many people may not realize that GTO was an almost direct sequel to a lesser-known manga series, Shonan Jun'ai Gumi! They most likely assumed that GTO started In Medias Res, though it could just be the fault of TokyoPop for Americans.
  • Shonan Junai Gumi was marketed as GTO: The Early Years in North America and UK, but it was marketed as Young GTO in France.
• Squick:
  • All the talk of wanting to, ahem, go with high school girls. Especially coming from the minds of Dirty Old Men. Mr. Sakurai is the worst offender, given his peeping tom tendencies and habit of covertly recording girls in bathrooms and locker rooms.
  • In the manga - Pubic hair cookies. It makes sense if you read it.
  • Onizuka's shit. Literally.
  • Mr. Sakurai going into a septic tank while it's being used, then running through the sewers to escape the cops.
• Tear Jerker: While Onizuka is dying of his Game-Breaking Injury, his old Nakama Ryuji refuses to believe that Onizuka could be hurt in any way and says that he can not die. When Onizuka's heart stops beating, he punches him in the chest hoping to wake him up, crying.
  • In the live-action drama episode 11, Onizuka was being forced apart from his students. As he was being dragged away, he tells each of his students something relating to their interests (showing just how well he got to know them) or a final piece of advice.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Onizuka's response to Tokiwa's plight of having been gang-raped is along the lines of "you are a girl, you are weak, you are always going to be a victim, roll with it". He also does nothing to punish the guys who raped her in the first place. In the West, Onizuka's response would be considered hideously sexist, but in Japan, it's just seen as a harsh reality and people who have a problem with it need to suck it up.
  • Onizuka in general is a fan of resorting to Corporal Punishment or other acts of humiliation to teach his students a lesson. Since he was put in charge of the problem class of the school that the rest of the faculty have already written off as lost causes, his methods are often treated as unorthodox but fair. Naturally, something like this wouldn't fly in real life.
• The Woobie:
  • Vice-principal Uchiyamada sometimes gets into this territory. Chapter 107 is his greatest moment.
  • Noboru fits this too. He took so much crap from Anko and her gang and still saves her anyway because it was the right thing to do.
  • Don't forget poor Tomo-chan, who gets called stupid by everyone, is manipulated by her "best friend" and who spends her time alone playing with dolls.
  • In Shonan 14 Days, most of the foster kids at White Swan have some sort of Dark and Troubled Past, but Sakurako, Ikuko, and Seiya have it the worst. All three had Abusive Parents: Sakurako's father beat and molested her, Ikuko's mom burned her with cigarettes and boiling water, and forced her to eat cat food, and Seiya's mom sided with her boyfriend, who beat both of them and forcibly gave Seiya a full-back tattoo, over her own son.

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