Great Teacher Onizuka 2012

Drama: GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

·  Romaji: GTO

·  Japanese: GTO

·  Director: Kazuhisa Imai, Toru Otsuka

·  Writer: Tohru Fujisawa (manga), Masaki Fukasawa

·  Network: Fuji TV

·  Episodes: 11

·  Release Date: July 3 - September 11, 2012

·  Runtime: Tuesday 22:00

Casts:

Eikichi Onizuka - Akira

Azusa Fuyuzuki - Miori Takimoto

Ryuuji Danma - Yuu Shirota

Toshiyuki Saejima - Yusuke Yamamoto

Yoshiko Sakurai - Hitomi Kuroki

I don’t know what made me want to watch this dorama since I’ve been watching some newer doramas these days. Maybe I needed something different? Well, I heard that this dorama has many remake versions, including the present 2014 versions. I read some comments in Asianwiki, people kept comparing the 2012 and 2014 versions. For me, to decide which version I’d like to watch was simple, I looked at the casts. When I’m familiar with more casts in 2012 version, then I downloaded. As easy as that :D

The story somehow reminds me of Gakkou No Kaidan. I watched the dorama few months ago. I really liked it. I shed tears in almost all episodes. The similarity is only in the setting—school, and some troubled students.The characters were different.

The story revolved in Eikichi Onizuka, an ex gardener who happened to help a student from Meishuu Academy from a trouble, then he was appointed to become a teacher there. He was assigned to teach 2-4 class, popular with their troubled students. Few teachers who taught the class had been thrown away by the students. It seemed that they had a kind of revenge towards the teacher that they did anything to shoo away the teachers. But Onizuka sensei is different.

In episode 1, where Onizuka was a part time gardener, he showed the way he solved the problems in his own way. This episode also introduced some characters that would be included in the next episodes, including some students with brains who proposed some plans to shoo away the new teacher. But, Onizuka sensei  was as hard as a rock!

I’m not going to tell all the episodes. I just want to say that apparently, after episode 4, I really enjoyed watching the episodes and kept wondering how the sensei solved the problems. His concept to get together the troubled students was by making them as friends and treated them a real friend even though he had to risk his won life. However, all teachers in the academy were againts his concept. It was not easy to convince them the concept, luckily he got two companions, Ms. Azusa Fuyuzuki and the principal Sakurai Yoshiko who proposed German suplex to treat the students.

I can say that actually the story was quite interesting but the problem was that it seemed that it was quite easy for students at teen age to decide to commit suicide, instead of solving the problem together. Let me call some names who decided to commit suicide: Nanako (she did it before Onizuka sensei taught the class, and she was the trigger of shooing away the teachers from 2-4 class), Urumi Kanzaki, Aizawa Miyabi and Asano. The problem they faced was actually either that lame or too serious that could trigger them to kill themselves. Even so, I liked the way Onizuka sensei solved their problem in his own way with the help of his best buddies, Saejima and Ryuuji. 

The acting….hmmmm… I can say that I enjoyed all characters here, but Saejima, who was a bit overacting :D The pervert character of Onizuka was quite obvious in the beginning of the episode but then continued in the next episodes hahaha… The way he got dressed somehow reminds of a rocker on the stage! with earrings, necklace and bracelet :D You cannot find this kind of teacher’s outfit but Onizuka sensei.

My most favorite episode was episode 7 which told about Urumi Kanzaki. Believe it or not, starting from this episode, my eyes got teary easily hahaha…. My least favorite was of course the last episode, 11—time to say goodbye to the series. Actually, after I read the additional cast in Asianwiki, I saw Shuhei Nomura name, I was so excited that I sacrificed my Sunday morning exercise to finish watching the last episode. Never had I thought that he would get that annoying character, but, he was really good at it.

Last but not least, I highly recommend this dorama to anyone who enjoy story about teen problems: friends, family, school,  but not merely about love. 

PS: Thanks for putting Yuu Shirota in this dorama. I really enjoy watching his sweet face. Aside from the three best friends; Onizuka, Saejima and Ryuuji, the last name I mentioned was really really eye candy hahahaha…

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