GTO - Field Trips (Vol. 9)

Rating:
Summary: Onizuka NEVER fails
Review: I just finished watching Vol. 9 and I have to say that I am never dissappointed with GTO. It has become my favorite anime and I can watch every episode again and again. Although Eikichi doesn't have very many roles in this Volume, you get to know more about the smaller characters like Yoshikawa and Anko. There are some really funny parts in this one too, and I know you will enjoy it! I've recently read the Final Japanese Manga of GTO and I was a little dissappointed with the ending. It's sad that there is only one volume left in this awesome series, and I hope that the ending is better in the Anime. Overall, I loved this volume (Well I love all of them) and I look forward to that sad day when I finish all the GTO episodes and shed a tear... (Ok maybe not)
Onizuka Forever!!!

Rating:
Summary: GTO Rules-Teacher Banzai!!!
Review: I own all of the released Gto DVDs the only one i dont own is Accusations coming 9/16/03. If you have ever seen any GTOs get it.
In this DVD, Fuyutsuki tries to improve her image after over hearing some rude comments from Onizuka about her image.
The students get very angry with onizuka when he tampers with the room assignments making them co-ed. Class 3-4 also gets angry with him when he leads them on a treasure hunt. And finallly yoshikawa and Anko must rely on eachother when they get stranded after an accident.
Over all I would say that this is a terrific DVD and I would most definately recommend that you buy this. As usual it has all its special features.

Rating:
Summary: GTO Rules-Teacher Banzai!!!
Review: I own all of the released Gto DVDs the only one i dont own is Accusations coming 9/16/03. If you have ever seen any GTOs get it.
In this DVD, Fuyutsuki tries to improve her image after over hearing some rude comments from Onizuka about her image.
The students get very angry with onizuka when he tampers with the room assignments making them co-ed. Class 3-4 also gets angry with him when he leads them on a treasure hunt. And finallly yoshikawa and Anko must rely on eachother when they get stranded after an accident.
Over all I would say that this is a terrific DVD and I would most definately recommend that you buy this. As usual it has all its special features.

Rating:
Summary: GTO Begins To Come Around Full Circle
Review: It's the GTO volume that opens with breast obsession and wraps up with a mushroom cloud bomb explosion. "Field Trips," the second to last volume of the "Great Teacher Onizuka" series, produces one sub-par episode, followed by three well-connected, well-orchestrated installments that once again remind us why GTO is such an addicting classic.

To quickly review what this series is about: 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 and somehow has to control them.

Volume 9 picks up where the last left off: Onizuka has bluffed and pulled off funding a field trip for Holy Forest Academy to a posh hotel resort in Okinawa. "Field Trips" could've easily done without its first episode, a yawner revolving around the hammering of love interest Fuyutsuki's self-esteem as she overhears everyone's snide comments about her petite figure and not-quite-Pamela-Anderson-sized chest. It's pretty much a two-character episode, with the more ample-sized Nurse Kadena constantly, accidentally making Fuyutsuki more self-conscious as she tries to help her shop for a bathing suit. No one would have missed a beat if this episode had never existed.

Then the fun begins. The next three episodes revolve around two characters who made a small comeback in the last GTO offering: Anko Uehara and Yoshikawa--the bullying girl and bullied boy from Volume 2 (she led a group of three girls to constantly beat him up, and even strip him naked, draw on his body and take pictures). The bullying picks up again once the group touches down on Okinawa, something that doesn't slip by Onizuka, who has also grown keen to a story computer genius Kikuchi finds online about treasure buried in one of the surrounding islands.

As usual, Onizuka dribbles mayhem all over the situation, with two plot twisting schemes. First, he screws around with the room assignments to get Kanzaki in a room of Gundam Wing nerds, henchmen Murai and Kikuchi in a room with Miyabi's two henchwomen (she doesn't go), and Yoshikawa in a room with the three girls that have picked on him for as long as they've known him. Second, he steals the class on the pretense of a trip to dig for turtle eggs, all the while meaning to find the buried treasure. As expected, the room assignments clash more than a green hat with an orange bill, making Onizuka a magnet for the students ire. Yoshikawa is given his "room" by the three girls--the mosquito-infested balcony. With Onizuka's help, he pulls off a clever prank on the girls, but pays dearly with another beating. With the class sequestered from the rest of Holy Forest on Onizuka's wild-goose treasure hunt, Yoshikawa becomes easy pickin's for Uehara and her group on the deserted island. A few accidents, a few obstacles in a few plots, and the last three episodes of "Field Trips" become a chaotic ride with life-threatening implications.

This is one of the most balanced, and surprisingly simple, GTO's since Volume 4: "The Test." On one hand is Oniuzka's treasure hunting group, which turns on him and appropriately punishes him for misleading them; on the other, Yoshikawa and Uehara find themselves separated from everyone, as Yoshikawa dives after Uehara who falls into a treacherous tide cavern. It's as simple as that--the show cuts back and forth from the usual comedic moments from Onizuka's group, to the more poignant, emotionally-shifting situation with the two lost teens.

This volume also once more emphasizes why the Japanese, sub-titled version towers over the English dub. The difference can be as subtle as (Warning!: mini-spoiler) a sentence that reads "we can be together on our last night in Okinawa" to "we can be together *since it's* our last night in Okinawa." One is an offer based on love, the other based on a time limitation (the time limitation one is the English dub). The difference can also make a world of difference in terms of the mood. In the sequence showing the class waiting for Onizuka, Kanzaki, Yoshikawa and Uehara to return, the Japanese version maintains two sets of conversation simultaneously, with Kikuchi's conversation in the foreground, and the class picking on Murai in the background. In another sequence, the English dub shows a waiting, lonely, Uehara pounding the water furiously screaming "Come back, Yoshikawa! Come back!" while the Japanese version furthers the story more sorrowfully makes it appear instead as though she's tapping the water, saying "Yoshikawa" in sad, frightened tones.

If you're this far into the series, I won't even have to recommend it to you--you're almost required to buy it. To newcomers, this is the allure of the series, despite the lackluster fourth volume: a simple series that has a character every and anyone can associate with, along with a barrage of cliffhangers that make the wait for the next volume nearly unbearable. A great PG-13 series.