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.
Both the anime and manga have been licensed in North America by Tokyopop.
Both the anime and manga have been licensed in North America by Tokyopop.
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:
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.
He enjoys teaching.
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:
Taking a standardized test in one hour instead of the normal five, while having three bullet wounds because he used the other four hours to rescue the daughter of a famous government official from the yakuza.
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, ranging from the busty bimbo to the oedipal rebel, to learn to genuinely enjoy life.
Onizuka, seeing this display of a teacher's power over girls, decides to become one himself. In his quest, he discovers three important things:
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.
He enjoys teaching.
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:
Taking a standardized test in one hour instead of the normal five, while having three bullet wounds because he used the other four hours to rescue the daughter of a famous government official from the yakuza.
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, ranging from the busty bimbo to the oedipal rebel, to learn to genuinely enjoy life.
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.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.
Anime
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 modeled after Sorimachi
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 modeled after Sorimachi
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