This fourth volume in the extremely addicting GTO series is by far the best, having watched the subsequent volumes.
The plot is simple enough: Eikichi Onizuka, a former bike gang member, college karate champ, 22 years old and a bachelor, has taken it upon himself to be the world's greatest teacher. with little or no qualifications, he somehow gets accepted into a prestigious school, is assigned the worst class of delinquents ever, and proceeds to work on taming the adolescent beasts.
Simple plot, complex protagonist. Onizuka is the definition of "man-child," the battle with the man and the child within him always in conflict. This is key as the series plays up the ongoing battle between the students and adults, be it teachers, administrators, parents or politicians. Onizuka is into videogames, internet porn, costumes, launching bottle rockets and ogling schoolgirls. At the same time he has a better sensitivity toward the real causes of the students problems, be it parental conflict, bad past experiences with teachers, money or bullying. Then again, he likes to deal with his problems in the most unorthodox methods, i.e. beating up students.
Just like standard fighting animes, Onizuka has to deal with various opponent-students during the course of the series. By now you'll have been introduced to bully Aizawa Miyabi, super smart Kikuchi, ditzy Tomoko, and fierce Kunio Murai.
This time, Onizuka must face super-hot super-genius Urumi Kanzaki, a blonde-haired, brown-and-blue eyed angel, who gets special treatment from the school, knowing that with such intelligence, her future success means tons for the school's reputation. Her thing is to "ask a question" from the teachers--traslating into humiliating them by showing them she knows more, far more about their subject than they do.
The sub-story line includes a girl from another school with a foot-fetish, who also has sway in getting Onizuka possibly fired.
This volume is great for so many reasons: the introduction of Kanzaki, the extremely fast pace and top-notch level of humor, as well as the ending...guaranteed cool.
The art is on a par with Dragonball Z, and watching this series in Japanese is *necessary*! Not only are their numerous word jokes (that a student is suffering a trauma, pronounced "tora-uma" evokes an image of a giant tiger-horse animal in Onizuka's mind), or that the English teacher struggles with and forces English, the story has pretty significant differences from the English to the Japanese version. The Japanese vocal cast is far superior, and the vocal intonations better match the facial expressions; the storyline and what they say are far more risque and naughtier than the English dub as well.
This volume is what GTO is all about, why the series is as good and addicting as it is. Great story, side-splitting humor, good action, well-felt tension and sadness as well. If I could own only one (which isn't possible) this would be it.
