The Armchair Empire - Anime Reviews: GTO Volume 4: The Test


Format: DVD Episodes: 5 (Lessons 15 - 19) Related Links: (Anime) GTO Volume 2 (Anime) GTO Volume 3 (Anime) GTO Volume 5	<MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/thearmchairem-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com">
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Great Teacher Onizuka Vol. 4

At this point I’m ready to brand Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO) one of the funniest (and strangely appealing) animated series ever. My fears that GTO would fall into cliché just hasn’t happened. I figured, how much more hell can Onizuka’s students put him through? Apparently a lot more. Lessons 15 – 19 put Onizuka through the wringer and he still bounces back for more.

As you may recall, the previous volume wrapped with Onizuka preparing for the biggest test of his life – and failing miserably. In order to keep his job he has to rank #1 overall. This disc opens with Onizuka late for the test as he attempts to stop a kidnapping. There are some funny moments with the kidnappers but the episode turns to the serious side when Onizuka finishes the exam – in a pool of his own blood. But you just know he'll be okay.

Lesson 16 introduces genius and “teacher killer” Urumi, another student in Onizuka’s homeroom, who makes his life a veritable hell for the rest of the disc. (Urumi is truly demon-like. She has a tendency to make teachers feel extremely inadequate during their lessons – pointing out inaccuracies and correcting them. Or she goes for outright physical humiliation.)

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This runs from the mundane (at least, compared to Onizuka’s standards to the extreme. The mundane includes a beautiful girl dressing Onizuka like a freak then running into the street claiming a pervert is on the loose. In true Onizuka fashion he runs like hell, finding out the next morning that the same girl, Urumi, is in his homeroom.

In a true Monty Python moment, a “venomous” cobra attaches itself to

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Onizuka’s crotch during class. Hilarity ensues as he runs to the staff room for help and they theorize of ways to get it off. There are some dark moments, sometimes punch-lined with laugh out loud results, especially one sequence that has Urumi bumped from a building and a ends with Onizuka trying to find a place to hide the body. This in turn culminates in Urumi blackmailing Onizuka, which leads to all sorts of comedy. (And a recap of the vice principal’s Cresta being destroyed.)

But the disc ends on a downer. Urumi attempts to kill her old elementary school teacher then blow up Holy Forest.

Even with the downer, GTO keeps climbing my list of all-time favorite animated series, in the top three, just behin The Tick and The Simpsons (having just edged out Batman: The Animated Series). A definite must-have for fans.

- Omni

(March 22, 2003)