The show is really funky. The best way to describe it is a love child between Golden Boy (the constant good from the protagonist) and Maison Ikkoku (the constant struggles that the protagonist must over come). Video 4.5/5 - Now I don't know if it was just me but I felt that the colors were a bit washed out. Though over all very nice. Some slight macro blocking in intense scenes. Audio 5/5 - There were no problems with the audio whatsoever. Very clear. The themes are all very good and the background music is really nice. Subs - Unfortunately I have to split this up, into two review segments. Episodes 1-42 = 3/5 - The subs were ok. Nothing to write home about but everything is understood. Often the subs run off screen so you miss a word or two. Plus there is plenty of engrish, though it all makes sense. Except for Onizuka and Julia all characters are given chinese names. "You say Akira I say Kwok nam". Heh heh. However they get the job done. Opening/Ending themes subbed!!!! Episode 43 = 0/5 - This grade is perfectly logical. I noticed that the subs were decent, except for one small thing. They used the previous episodes subs!!!! This was just pathetic. I just turned the damned things off. It wasn't horrible raw, you could still get some of it. Though just plain wrong. Packaging 5/5 - This doesn't redeem the sub problems at all. Though it will look nice with all of my other anime. 5 DVDs in 3 amaray cases. They are put into a slip case that is colorful and filled with screen shots of the show. Funny thing is to an english speaking person the dvd cases are in backwards because the chinese read right to left so the cases are put that way. Content 5/5 - The show rocked. It had some serious aspects with beatings and suicide. However Onizuka and his Golden-Boy like expressions were hilarious. The show was extremely fun to sit down and watch. I had no problem watching 8 or 9 episodes in one sitting. My only gripe was the last episode. I understood it but it would have been awesome with subs. Though I would like to say that the ending does leave you in a state of suspense with loose ends. Some things were never resolved. Many episodes had me laughing and anticipating hopes of romance. The last couple of episodes really had me drawn in. To put it simply, I have not seen a show like Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO) Overall - This is a solid purchase with 43 episodes for about $45. The first 42 episodes are great. They will have you happy as a monkey. However the last episode leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth and gives you a slight understanding of what happened (unless you know Japanese). However if you hae patience to sit down and watch an episode raw, look past chinese names, and do you best to understand text off screen, you will be in for a treat. It will be a lot cheaper than the R1's. Not only that the R1's are only up to episode 15 something. So this one is a semi-decent purchase if you want to see GTO. edited by Steve_the_Talking_Pie on 30 Oct 2002 6:52 pm

This series had been hyped up to me for a loooong time. So I finally went out and got this set. Onizuka and his teaching style totally impressed me, but AV's DVD most certainly did not. The video is okay, but soft and not too bright. I give it a 4. The audio was okay, but nothing super. Not as clear as I would have hoped. 4 stars Subs drove me crazy. Onizuka is the only one with the correct name used. All the rest are Chinese screwed up names. Very annoying. Sentences and words are used weirdly too. Very understandable, but aggravating. 3 stars.

The story is about a 22-year old teacher named Onizuka who takes on a class of people who likes to play pranks on teachers in order to oust them from the institution. In comes Onizuka, a used-to-be bike gang member, who has his own way of teaching, and turns the students around. Video: 5 I didn't see any problems with it. Audio: 5 I didn't hear any problems... but, I don't have a stereo system either Subtitles: 3 They use Chinese names instead of the original Japanese names throughout the video. These guys should be using Romaji names when doing English subtitles. Perhaps they'll get it right one-day. The English is understandable, but English grammer school would have been helpful for these translators. Typos here and there. Incorrect timing in many areas, too! And my biggest gripe of all: WRONG SUBTITLES for episodes 27-31 and 38! Apparently, it seems they didn't have translations for these so they pulled it from other episodes and applied them on episodes 27-31 and 38! This resulted in Episode 27-31 and 38 getting subtitles from other episodes making it really difficult to understand, so I suggest turning off the subtitles for these episodes! The crap pull these days! Recommendation: If you understand Japanese, I'd highly recommend it. It has an excellent storyline. If all you understand is English, and you've read some of the bilingual manga and want more, I'd recommend it...

Video: The Video was kinda washed out and old (mostly because the original video looked aged in the 1st place. It was however simular to the dvd r1 release though. Audio: The audio was pretty much intact and all together, only very few instances were I could hear the audio fall slightly, but it was not even noticable. I woulda given this a 4.5 on the audio if I could Subtitles: These made me cry, not out of joy, but out of pain. Its all in engrish and alot of it, A LOT OF The subs fall of the screen. There are a couple of times when the subs are not translated accurately. The story could still be followed, but the subing was a sloppy job by AV. Be warned too, the last episode of the FIXED version is messed up. It uses subs from the episode before it. Content: The content was awsome. This set could suffer from the most detestible problems and still be worth buying simply because the show is hall of fame anime material. Packaging: The box and the cases looked good and I liked the slighly reflective text on the box. The disc holders however are not good. the don't hold the discs really well Final Thoughts: A sloppy job by anime video, but the show's worthiness shines through still, and since the r1s are expensive and slow to be released, you should pick this up solely because the show is sooo awsome.