GTO 3 - Outcasts

Tohru Fujisawa’s former gang leader turned junior-high-school teacher, Eikichi Onizuka, returns in this third volume of exploits in educational dysfunction GTO. Once known as Eikichi the Evil, Onizuka is a chain-smoker, street-fighter and unashamed leach who has gained a teaching position at the Holy Forest Academy. With his unconventional methods, serious disregard for the curriculum, and penchant for schoolgirls in mini-skirts, Onizuka is a favourite with the school’s delinquent students; a sub-species that the young educator has vowed to protect. But the other faculty members, with the exception of the voluptuous young teacher Azusa Fuyutsuki, aren’t at all impressed with the young hoodlum. His nemesis, the balding vice principal, would like nothing better to see him thrown back onto the streets whence he came.

Lesson 10: Outside Looking In
Outcast from the gang of head-girl Aizawa’s gang, failed cheerleader and all-round dunce Toroko becomes the brunt of some particularly nasty bullying. And so it’s up to Onizuka to befriend this lost soul and restore her self-confidence. His cure is to enrol her in a beauty pageant. The problem is, she’s going head to head with the bitch queen Aizawa herself!

Lesson 11: To Be Idolised By a Nation
The Miss Inogashira beauty pageant continues, and as Onizuka and his class perv from the audience, Toroko tries desperately to win back the friendship of Aizawa. With a little manipulation from the master teacher, these swim-suited childhood friends just might be able to bury their differences…

Lesson 12: The Formula for Treachery
It looks like Onizuka may well have some competition for the love of his life Miss Azusa Fuyutsuki - spocky math teacher Teshigawara is stalking the leggy young teacher. And just his luck, Onizuka’s new nemesis is a psycho with high-ranking connections in the educational establishment!

Lesson 13: Only the Best Will Do
With Teshigawara’s designs on Fuyutsuki coming to fruition, he turns his sights on Onizuka and the destruction of his teaching career; bringing the school-board down on him. Threatened with his removal from Holy Forest Academy, Onizuka’s only chance is to prove himself by attempting the high school entrance exams along with his students...

Lesson 14: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
With Onizuka’s preparation for the exams looking shaky, Fuyutsuki offers him a bed at her place so that he can study. With dreams of fantastic sex, Onizuka instead finds himself faced with a week of fish-heads and alpha-waves…

The first volume of GTO promised much; a series filled with laugh-out-loud slap-stick comedy, a little schoolboy titillation and even some decent character development. Now although I missed volume two of the series, I must say that I had little trouble picking up the threads of the story here; a fact that may indicate that nothing much has changed for our hero in the intervening four episodes. Certainly volume three of Onizuka’s exploits feels a little more pedestrian than promised by the first volume. And although the quota of panty-shots is still being fulfilled in earnest, there are far fewer laughs to be had in episodes 10 to 13. In contrast, episode 14’s a hoot, but I was certainly left less impressed with this third volume than by the first outing.

Nevertheless, this being said I remain intrigued by GTO; an anime series that is unlike anything that has been produced before. The plot threads may be well known, and the outcome of the series predictable (well, I expect guy get’s girl – I might be wrong) but the duality of Onizuka’s character makes for interesting viewing. You just don’t know what this wacky guy is going to do next.

If I may reiterate from my review of Volume 1, in terms of the quality of its animation, GTO is a rather interesting beast. Conveying a minimalistic, almost grungy feel to the series, the artwork - and reportedly following the style of the original manga - often descends into rather rough line drawings; especially when Onizuka becomes enraged or excited. Focusing on a male protagonist, GTO’s characterisations are in general more realistic than your typical anime series, but at the same time there’s also a generous helping of super-deformation in terms of facial expressions and slapstick body movements. The level of animation detail meanwhile suggests a rather modest production budget for the series and, with the exception of the opening credit sequence, the animation is rather Saturday-morning with abundant use of panning stills and other cost-cutting methods.

In terms of Madman’s transfer the story is typically impressive, with the full-frame image taken from almost perfect source material and displaying no traces of the compression process whatsoever. In keeping with the grungy style, colours are rather muted, but remain well-balanced throughout. The image is sharp without introducing aliasing-related nasties; what detail exists in the production’s artwork is here for all to see. The only negative to report is two instances of video interference to be seen momentarily at the top of the screen in the middle of episodes 11 and 12. These are very minor, in no way distracting, and will not be noticed by most viewers.

As was the case for volume 1, in keeping with the series’ modest budget we are supplied with rather simple Dolby Digital surround soundtracks in both the original Japanese and an English dub. Both mixes are almost exclusively front-channel affairs, with few directional effects and, apart from the catchy opening and closing themes, a noticeably sparse use of backing music. When the surround channel does get a look in, it’s to provide limited ambient sound such as police sirens and the rumble of motorbikes, or in the whooshing exclamations that support Onizuka’s rather excitable personality.

Dialogue, thankfully, is clear and distinct throughout; both in the original and dubbed versions. The Japanese voice talent is very good, especially the voice of Onizuka which conveys his working-class, street-wise background. The English voice actors, while reasonable, are certainly less impressive, and the Californian ‘valley-girl’ voices of the female students are guaranteed to make you want to slice your ears off after one or two episodes. Most annoying, though, is that fact that the English script has been altered markedly from the original Japanese; watering down the original plot to remove the more overt sexual references. In particular, Episode 10 suffers markedly in this regard; a short sequence where pornographic movies are discussed is almost unrecognisable.

Full-frame menus provide access to what is a fairly standard set of extras for the series and Madman releases in general. Joining the textless opening and textless closing is yet another instalment of gone wild - a montage of 11 snippets from these five episodes that shows the amazing, erm, ‘versatility’ of Onizuka’s facial muscles. A series of eight stills, GTO eye catches - some with audio and some without – follows and is an addition that I am still yet to fathom. Thankfully, the four pages of character designs are more easily understood. Finally, trailers for Spirited Away, NieA Under 7, Tenchi Muyo and RahXephon complete the package.

Although a little more pedestrian as the series enters these middle episodes, GTO is still an entertaining anime experience. If you have yet to sample the exploits of one Eikichi Onizuka, then I certainly recommend you do so.