Onizuka Fights A Corrupted System

Finally, GTO has returned to form! This is one of the best episodes in a while.

Episode 8 is about Miyabi's mother, Reiko Aizawa (Reiko Tajima), and her crusade as the president of the PTA to have Onizuka fired and Miyabi's posse, Chikako Oshima (Minami Shirakawa) and Erika Tsukushima (Tomoka Hayashi), expelled (because of their inappropriate participation in compensated dating in the previous episode). Meanwhile, Onizuka deals with the situation in his usual unorthodox fashion - by spending the entire day having fooling around with Chikako and Erika.

I think this episode contains easily one of the strongest writing in the series, as you could really feel the culmination of all the build-up since the beginning when you see all the bonds Onizuka built with the students pay off greatly at the end. We also finally get to learn the reason why Miyabi is hateful towards adults and teachers in general, and it is a particularly sympathetic story involving corrupted adults. Coincidentally, it also involves another student named Takeshi being expelled because of a corrupted system.

Previously, I mentioned that I was bothered by how most of the teachers were unlikable human beings as it makes for an unrealistic setting. But the way it's written here in this episode, however, it's more about kids feeling betrayed by lying adults who are too busy playing politics with each other to give a damn about the children's feelings. That's something that's very relatable today, especially in America and what is happening with the "Never Again" movement. And even in Japan, I would imagine that with all the sucking up going up to uphold their reputation, such corruption among the ranks probably isn't too uncommon either in the country.

In spite of most teachers here being one-dimensional villains, it does make Onizuka look better and more inspiring as a teacher. Onizuka is at his most heroic and coolest here as he puts in a lot of effort in fighting the system (sometimes literally), not only to keep Chikako and Erika from being expelled, but also to ensure they have a great time before they are forced to leave school.

We also get to see Azusa finally speaking up against the other teachers. It's nice to see that it's only when other students are put at risk that finally pushes Azusa to speak her mind. It probably wouldn't be as special a moment if she had spoken out before for herself, so this is a nice writing here. Good to see Azusa finally becoming her own person. I also love that she compares the two students' expulsion to Takeshi here, calling out the other students' hypocrisy in letting yet more of their classmates getting kicked out of school.

I hope GTO could continue to keep this momentum up for the rest of the series. This is the most "feel-good" episode I've seen so far, and it shows that idealistic values don't have to be unrelatable or cheesy. Bravo.

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