Great Teacher Onizuka (グレート・ティーチャー・オニヅカ, Gurēto Tīchā Onizuka), officially abbreviated to GTO, is a manga, anime, and live-action shōnen series created by Tohru Fujisawa. It is the story of Eikichi Onizuka, a 22-year-old former bōsōzoku member, and his quest to be the greatest teacher in Japan. GTO is a continuation of Tohru Fujisawa's other manga series Shonan Junai Gumi (lit. "Shōnan True Love Group") and Bad Company.

Story:
While peeping up girls' skirts at a local shopping mall, Onizuka meets a girl who agrees to go out on a date with him. Onizuka's attempt to bed her fails when her current "boyfriend," her teacher, shows up at the love hotel they are in and asks her to come back. This teacher is old and unattractive, but she is so under this teacher's power that she leaps from a window two stories up and lands in his arms.

Onizuka, seeing this display of a teacher's power over girls, decides to become one himself, and discovers three important things:

1. He has a conscience and a sense of morality. This means taking advantage of impressionable schoolgirls is out ... but their unusually attractive mothers are a different matter.
2. He enjoys teaching.
3. He hates the systems of traditional instruction, especially when they have grown ignorant and condescending.

With these realizations, he sets out to become the greatest teacher ever, using his own brand of philosophy and the ability to do nearly anything when under sufficient pressure:

Taking a standardized test in one hour instead of the normal five, while having three bullet wounds because he used the other four hours to rescue the daughter of a famous government official from a yakuza hideout.

Hired as a long-shot teacher by a privately operated school to tame a class that has driven one teacher to a mysterious death, one to nervous breakdown, and one to joining a cult, he embarks on a mission of self-discovery by breaking through to each student one by one, and helping each student, ranging from the busty bimbo to the oedipal rebel, to learn to genuinely enjoy life.

Trivia:
A 12-episode live-action (drama) was broadcasted on television, based loosely on the manga. Takashi Sorimachi stars as Onizuka, and Nanako Matsushima as Azusa. It is directed by Masayuki Suzuki, with music composed by Takayuki Hattori and the opening song, "Poison", sung by Takashi Sorimachi himself. There are several drastic changes from the manga to fit the 12-hour format of the live-action series, such as the following:

• Nanako Mizuki also studies at the Holy Forest Academy
• The character of Uehara Anko is eliminated; instead, her characteristics are merged into Miyabi Aizawa's character, thus making Miyabi the daughter of the PTA president
• Ryuji Danma's character is also eliminated, giving some of his characters's functions to Saejima, Onizuka's police friend
• Julia Murai, Kunio's mother, is the widow of Onizuka's biker gang idol, rather than being just another parent of one of Onizuka's students

Nevertheless, the changes in the live-action accomplishes to capture the spirit of GTO very well. According to Tokyopop, the final episode of the live action series was the most watched television program ever in Japan.

Coincidentally, Matsushima is married to Takashi Sorimachi, who played Onizuka in that series. Sorimachi and Matsushima met on the set of GTO, they married in 2001 after a long term relationship and, in May 2004, Nanako gave birth to their first child, a baby daughter.

A two-hour television special followed in August 1999, and a theatrical movie in January 2000.

From the Editor's Desk:
Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information. Hana Yori Dango ended today and GTO Live will replace Hana Yori Dango’s timeslot on Monday at GMA 7. I’m sure GTO Live is going to be an exciting live-action series although the original run of GTO was way back July 7, 1998(I was 9 years old by that time). While reading the story of GTO, I was reminded of Gokusen because they have some similarities like the class that has driven teachers because of their mischievous attitude. No matter how old this live action series is, I’ll watch it on Monday because like what I said in my previous entry, I am a fan of Japanese Series and Movies. If you want to buy GTO DVD, click the picture above.