GTO: The Bully (Vol. 2) (1999)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Written by Tohru Fujisawa (original manga)
Directed by Kino Abe

Features:

• full-motion menus
  
• galleries
  
• original Japanese opening/closing
  
• character concept sketches
  
• Japanese and English audio
  
• English subtitles
  

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

• rabid PTA attacks!
• gratuitous panty shots
• mildly lecherous teacher

Rating: 16+

Anamorphic:

My Advice: Buy it.

Eikichi Onizuka, ex-biker, game fiend, and karate expert turned high school teacher, wants to be the greatest teacher in the world. The problem is that his homeroom is full of the worst kids in Tokyo, his vice-principal hates him, and he has a temper problem that almost matches his libido. Onizuka may not embody typical teaching virtues, but it cannot be denied that he does whatever it takes to protect and nurture his students, from taking half-naked pictures of them to tormenting their tormentors--even dressing up as a monkey in front of everyone. You may be laughing despite yourself, but you will laugh.

GTO 2 provides five more episodes, called "Lessons," showing Onizuka using his street-smarts to handle everything from bullies to a student's attractive mother. The episodes for the most part stand alone; each week, Onizuka deals with another troubled student from his class, using his street wisdom and unique way of handling the bureaucracy. In Lessons 5 and 6, Onizuka deals with a nasty female bully and teaches them all a lesson about humiliation, mercy, and friendship. Then Lesson 7, Onizuka meets the mother of one of his students, and she's quite beautiful and much younger than he expected. In Lesson 8, some punks are pestering some of Onizuka's students, and they learn what it means to face their own fears when Onizuka gets his hands on them. Finally, in Lesson 9, Onizuka takes on the PE teacher in a no-holds-barred swimming match and panty-theft fiasco.

The features list is beefy enough to satisfy most DVD-buyers. The full-motion menus are, as with disk one, attractive and amusing. The galleries, one showing random images from the show and another showing character sketches, are good, if not terribly extensive. It is also nice to have the original Japanese opening and closing credits; I'd love to see a documentary where production companies talk about how and why they alter such things for international audiences. It would be nice to have an episode of the live-action version of GTO for comparison, but given the likely problematic license issues, this is a forgivable oversight.

GTO is a hysterical series, and if anything, this second disk is even funnier than the first one. It becomes much clearer in these episodes how much Onizuka truly cares about all his students, even the troublesome ones who try to get him fired or arrested. It is this caring and dedication that eventually win them over, one by one, and will win over most viewers, as well. Some parents might be horrified by his teaching methods, which range from suspect to downright brutal at times, but his results and the affection of his students are hard to ignore.