GTO Episode 10

Rape Makes For Lazy Writing - Part 2

The staff of Seirin Institute is trying to get Onizuka fired again. This time, they force him to take an exam alongside the students and score at least a cumulative amount of 400 points (80 marks per subject)! Azusa thus decided to tutor Onizuka for the rest of the week with a strict schedule that results in hilarious moments. The other subplot of the episode involves Miyabi meeting a Takeshi lookalike who has his own schemes with the girl. This latter subplot, unfortunately, leads to a rather predictable storyline.

The 1998 GTO has often had some rather edgy and graphic scene involving sex, with Onizuka coming out (ironically) the only gentleman among lowlife scums. I don't mind that they were trying to make their main character look good, but I still feel like it's fairly lazy writing and hurts the series more than it helps it, especially with this episode. I don't know why a number of Japanese drama shows like "GTO" and "Life" like to portray these high society elite students as despicable and sex-craved bastards. It's cliched, and the shock factor doesn't produce very shocking or surprising results. It's eye-rolling, if anything. But in GTO's defense, unlike "Life", this was produced in the '90s, so at least the dated content made some semblance of sense (though the Life manga was technically released only five years after the GTO manga).

But I could understand the need for a clear and unapologetic villain. Not every villain needs to be ambiguous. Sometimes, you just need a shallow plot device to make the hero look good. It's still lazy writing, but I could understand why. It's when the supporting characters whom you are supposed to care about, a woman no less, become one of the plot device in making the main hero look good that becomes a bigger problem than mere lazy writing.

It also doesn't help when Onizuka in the episode attempted to kiss a sleeping Azusa... Yeah. It's that kind of show. It's probably funnier watching this in anime form where perverse behavior is the norm, but in live action, it's just downright disturbing, especially in politically correct 2018.

I remember a review for the GTO manga commenting that the series is about chivalry and how a proper man should behave. It might be a dated concept, even in Japan, but I could appreciate the kind of story they are trying to tell through Onizuka. And because such chivalry is the main subject of the story, I guess Onizuka being portrayed as a hero among one-dimensional fiends and a plot-device cast is probably inevitable. Writing the story any other way can be challenging and creates a lot of problems. On the other hand, with a series that tries to incorporate realistic and relatable topics about Japanese culture, such cartoonish chivalry seems contradictory as well, and it doesn't work well as a story.

Having said all that, it's hard to completely hate this episode because Onizuka is indeed quite cool and heroic in this episode, and that surprise cliffhanger at the end was shocking and so very memorable. It's probably the only thing I remembered about the show as a kid. Just one of the examples where the series becomes very graphic and gritty. It's also nice to see that Onizuka is capable of studying well when he puts effort into it, proving what I believed all along, that he's not stupid, just lazy and thick-headed (traits that many Japanese shows like to associate with their male protagonist, especially in anime).

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