Eikichi Onizuka is a 22 year old ex-member of the Onibaku street gang of Shonan, looking to turn over a new leaf, left in the dust of the success of his previous gang members and best friend Ryuji, who have all moved on with their lives.
Therefore he decides that finding the perfect gravy train of a job will suffice, and what is an easier occupation than becoming a teacher: easy pay, frequent holidays off term and of course the over exposure of young impressionable 16 -18 year old female students just waiting to be taught the finer elements of extracurricular activities.
That of course is until he applies for a position in Holy Forest academy, and witnesses first-hand the dismissive attitude of teachers towards students. And something clicks, perhaps something reminiscent of his student life, and after a mild altercation showing discontent at how verbal abuse can scar would-be achievers, The Director of Holy Forest academy Ryoko Sakurai decides to offer him a job. This is where Onizuka is put to the test given authority over the most problematic class of the school, and here is where we see him really shine.
Not that he’s a very competent teacher, he barely graduated from a third rate college, cannot teach curriculum that even he finds mind-numbingly boring, and half the time his students know more about the subject matter than he does. Despite this, he is the greatest teacher Holy Forest has ever had, because he can teach the only lesson, school academia can never fully enrich in the students’ lives; and that is the lesson of growing up.
The students of Holy forest, having previously suffered a trauma involving misplaced trust in a scofflaw teacher, have developed the consensus that adults are all transgressors, and that once you get close to someone, they will inevitably hurt you. But not Onizuka, he vies to win back his wayward students by any means necessary , with his own brand of street-wise tutoring, attributed from the experience of his own personal school of hard knocks, where much needed role-models was absent in his own former years.
This is what earns him his respect, by never backing down when things get rough, which many of the previous role-models have done without ever looking back. He never maintains an authoritarian bravado like his previous counterparts as a means to create a barrier between their personal lives and the problems of their students, and he is always there when his students need him the most.
All in all Great teacher Onizuka is an enthralling experience that is very rare in anime and even in television shows themselves, and even without a foreknowledge or appreciation for Japanese animation in its entirety, it’s really worth tracking this anime down to watch yourself. While elements of the show may be slightly effusive, the themes, delivery and plot in themselves, delineate this anime as a rare breed of television show that probably won’t be seen in the near future.
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