GTO Live Action ep.3-4

August 26, 2004 | 8 Comments

Heh. It's amazing what you can get from a little bit of fact finding here and there. I just found out that the actors who played Onizuka and Fuyutsuki (Takashi Sorimachi and Nanako Matsushima) are actually a couple in real life. I don't know if they actually got hitched after their roles in GTO but it's not that difficult to see that as a possibility. Their chemistry together in this live action version is miles better than that of the anime version. As a result, the fact that Onizuka is interested in her right from the start instead of chasing some high school girls is far more believable here than in the anime version. I also like the fact that the teachers in this version are far more lively than in the anime version. Watching their shenanigans and their office politics is as entertaining as watching Onizuka trying to win over the respect of his students one by one.

Anyway, continuing from the cliffhanger of the last episode, Onizuka and his loyal students spot Noboru about to do a jump from the rooftop of the school. Realising this, Onizuka quickly runs on top of a car and tries to catch Noboru before he plummets down into the car. Onizuka succeeds in doing so but as a result, he becomes unconscious for a couple of seconds due to the heavy impact of catching Noboru's fall. When he regains his consciousness, Onizuka finds out from Nanoka and her friends that Noboru is often bullied by his classmates. Because of this, the next day Onizuka confronts his class and asks them to apologise if they're the one who's been bullying Noboru. Of course no one stands up and to make matter worse, Miyabi has the guts to tell Onizuka that no one bullies Noboru while at the same time tries to intimade Noboru from telling the truth. The tactics seem to work because Noboru is too scared to say the truth thanks to Miyabi's pressure.

Anyway, back in the teacher's room, Onizuka is surprised to see a middle-aged guy sitting in front of him. At first he thought that the person is an intruder but Fuyutsuki tells him not to be stupid because the guy is none other than Fujitomi-sensei from the Classic Literature class. Apparently the reason Onizuka never saw him before is because Fujitomi-sensei has been taking a break from teaching due to the stress inflicted by the students and the parents. Well, that and also because he has some of the most unsupportive colleagues around him. Uchiyamada, for example, chooses to insults Fujitomi-sensei upon spotting the teacher by loudly talking to his yesman, Nakamata, about how Fujitomi-sensei has come back just to get his salary. Upon hearing them, Onizuka says aloud that it seems to him that bullying happens even between the teachers themselves. He then tells Fujitomi-sensei that he should not be quiet and accept the bullying because otherwise the situation will just get worse.

During Fujitomi-sensei's class, the kids in Noboru's class seem to be having a hell of a time bullying him. Murai even tries to pressure Nanako and her two other friends to throw a rock wrapped inside a scrumpled paper at Noboru. He suggests that they do what he says or else they'll become the class's enemy. Scared at the threat, the three almost succumb to peer pressure had Fujitomi-sensei didn't come and attempt to take the rock from Murai's hand. Murai, who detests the interference, tries to scare off Fujitomi-sensei by trying to scuffle the rock from Fujitomi-sense's hand. But after a while, he decides to let it go and returns to his seat. The sad thing for both Noboru and Fujitomi-sensei is the fact that during lunch break, instead of going to the cafetaria or to the teacher's room, in Fujitomi-sensei's case, they both choose to retreat to the quietness of the sick room. It seems they both hope that they can spend their lunch break in peace without terror from their peers.

The two, however, are surprised when they find Onizuka and his three students already inside the sick room telling each other horror story. Onizuka's horror story, however, is not that scary. As a result, Onizuka asks Noboru to tell a better horror story. Noboru, despite his initial hesitation, finally decides to tell a story and ends up having a good time with Onizuka and the other 3 students. Seeing Onizuka's unusual method in dealing with the introvert Noboru seems to impress Fujitomi-sensei. The problem is, the incident seems to convince Fujitomi-sensei that unlike Onizuka, he is not a good teacher and as a result entertains the idea of leaving the school for good. As a result, the school decides to have a farewell party for Fujitomi-sensei and Fuyutsuki gets the task of collecting donation from other teachers and securing a place at a restaurant. In the midst of doing so, however, Fuyutsuki notices that Miyabi and her two female friends are in the middle of bullying Noboru.

Fuyutsuki tries to confront them but because of Noboru's tight-lipness, the girls claim that the whole thing is just a game. Well, that is until Onizuka appears in front of them. Onizuka is not amused with the fact that the girls are still bullying Noboru and he's also not amused with Noboru for being such a wimp. He tells the girls he wants to 'join them' and proceeds to take all of them to a rooftop. Upon getting them, he proceeds to hang Noboru's body upside down on one of the building's ledge. Everyone, of course, freaks out especially Fuyutsuki who immediately passes out on the spot. Onizuka tells Miyabi that if she wants to bully someone, don't do it halfway especially since they claimed with their big mouth that they wanted to kill Noboru. He tells them that if they want, he'll drop Noboru down. The girls freak out and tell Onizuka to stop it. Onizuka smirks and drags Noboru back to safety. Onizuka then tells the girl that they should try to bully someone who's stronger because bullying a weak person is not fun.

Onizuka then proceeds to show his point by taking Miyabi on his arms and hangs her upside down at the ledge just like he did to Noboru. Miyabi wails in panic but Onizuka simply leers at her and asks her how does she like being bullied now. Meanwhile, down at the pier, Uchiyamada is in the middle of having a not so-fun lunch with his wife and daughter. They are unhappy that Uchiyamada fails to deliver his promise to take them on a Hot Spring holiday. Uchiyamada tries to reason that it's because the new Benz has to be repaired (due to the damaged caused by Onizuka) but this does not impress the two. In the middle of the argument, however, a bag falls from the sky, prompting Uchiyamada to look for the source and notices Onizuka hanging Miyabi upside down in one of the buildings. Back to Onizuka, he finally brings Miyabi to safety. Miyabi is obviously pissed off and tells Onizuka that she'll tell this to her parents because even they never scold her. Hmm, maybe they should. Onizuka, however, can't care less. He tells Miyabi that if she terrorises Noboru again, he'll kill her. He then takes Noboru and Fuyutsuki away.

The incident of course earns Onizuka the wrath of not only Miyabi but also Uchiyamada. Miyabi wants Onizuka to apologise publicly to her in the school assembly by kneeling before her. Noboru tries to tell Uchiyamada that Miyabi really did bully him but Uchiyamada doesn't believe Noboru and tells the boy that unless Onizuka agrees to Miyabi's request, he'll be fired. Because of this, Noboru begs Onizuka to apologise to Miyabi because he doesn't want to lose Onizuka as a teacher. He's afraid that the bullying will get worse if Onizuka decides to leave the school. Seeing the boy's fear, Onizuka agrees to come to the assembly. Upon getting there, Onizuka does kneel in the podium but when he speaks, he tells everyone that he kneels because he wants to say 'sorry' to Noboru. He tells Noboru that he's sorry but he can't lie. He then turns his attention to Miyabi and tells her that even if the whole world tells him that she's right, he'll believe Noboru instead of her because Noboru is his friend.

Seeing Onizuka's defiance, Noboru decides to come to the front and proceeds to strip down in front of the other students and show the bruises that he receives from Miyabi's bullying. Of course, Miyabi and her friends try to weasel out of it by claiming that Noboru could have done it himself. But their big mouths are shut by the sound of their own voice in the speaker telling the entire assembly about how they enjoy bullying Noboru. The recording then gets to the juicy parts where they insult the teachers and even Uchiyamada. Miyabi and her friends are in panic but there's nothing they can do about it because they don't know where the recording come from. Later on, however, Fuyutsuki finds out that Kikuchi is the one who's been playing the recording. Apparently he told Noboru to bring a tape recorder and to use it when Miyabi starts bullying him. Anyway, thanks to the recording, Miyabi and her friends get punished. On top of things, after witnessing Onizuka and Noboru's bravery, Fujitomi-sensei decides to remain as a teacher at the school.

Of course this is not the end of Miyabi's wrath because as the next episode demonstrates, she gets even with Onizuka by asking almost everyone on her class to stop coming to school until they get a new teacher. As a result, when Onizuka comes in to teach, only Noboru, Kikuchi, Nanako, and her two friends present inside the class. Onizuka is given an ultimatum by the principal: unless he can get his students back before the next term starts, he'll get fired. Meanwhile, Miyabi and her friends are scheming to use one of their classmate, Tomoko, to entrap Onizuka. They want Tomoko to deliver a fake love letter to Onizuka so that Onizuka will come and meet Tomoko in the sick room. Tomoko at first refuses but in the end has no choice but to accept the task because Miyabi and the others threaten to exclude her from the group. Unfortunately for Tomoko, she ends up putting the letter in Nakamata's mail box instead so regardless her intention, she still gets the brunt of Miyabi's wrath and is excluded from the rest of her 'friends'.

Feeling sad because she has lost her so-called 'friends', Tomoko goes home to her home, which also turns out to be a sushi shop. She's greeted by her parents and much to her surprise, her two teachers, Onizuka and Fuyutsuki. The teachers quickly finds out that Tomoko's parents have the tendency to belittle their own daughter. Tomoko's parents seem to think that their daughter is slow and at best can only become a housewife. Feeling sad for Tomoko, Fuyutsuki tries to cheer her up and build her confidence by taking her shopping to buy a new dress. Unfortunately, Tomoko still feels as if she can't do anything right when she gets scolded by Kotani-sensei for making a hand puppet instead of a pattern work inside the sewing class. Because of this, Onizuka decides to enter Tomoko into an Idol contest in the hope of increasing Tomoko's confidence (and earn him some side money). Tomoko seems to be quite happy about the idea but the problem is all of the teachers except Fuyutsuki oppose her decision to enter the audition and tells her that they will not allow her to leave school for one day to enter such foolish competition.

Onizuka, however, does not feel like giving up the idea and decides to smuggle Tomoko out of the school on the day of the audition. He intentionally throws a soccer ball into Kotani's sensei Ikebana (flower arrangement) class so that the female teacher gets pissed off and decides to call Uchiyamada. Unfortunately for her, by the time she returns to the class, not only Onizuka is already gone, Tomoko has also disappear as well. Speaking of her, Tomoko finally manages to reach the audition place but she's a bit intimidated when she finds out that Miyabi is also there to compete in the audition. Never the less, she decides to give it a try despite failing miserably from time to time. Tomoko, however, get tongued-tied during the speech part of the audition mostly because of Miyabi's venomous 'advice' to her. This forces Onizuka to come into the stage and tell Tomoko to just be herself. Of course, Onizuka ends up being dragged away by the security but manages to impart some words of wisdom to Tomoko to be sincere because that's what he likes about her.

Upon hearing Onizuka's words, Tomoko can't help but cries in front of the audience. But while doing so, she manages to give a heartfelt and honest speech about herself by using the hand puppet that she created herself. Her genuine emotion impresses the audiences to the point that they all decide to give her an applause. Even Miyabi seems to be a bit touched by her speech so maybe she has a heart after all. Okay, that's stretching it a bit too far. In the end, Tomoko may not come out as the overall winner but she manages to win an award for speech and is congratulated by everyone. The next day when they arrive at school, Tomoko and Fuyutsuki are surprised to see the positive reception from other students for Tomoko. It looks like not only they've seen her genuine performance, Onizuka has also done some PR work for her by selling her photographs to other students. Not everyone is happy, of course, because at the end of the episode, Kotani-sensei is seen looking psychotic and swears revenge on Onizuka. So from the look of it, the next episode will be "Attack of the Ikebana Teacher!!".

Impression:

It's undeniable that most of the time Onizuka's action is bordering on reckless especially in the third episode. Hanging his students upside down on a rooftop ledge is definitely taking things a bit too far and I doubt it'll be tolerated in real life. But within the context of scaring Noboru so he won't try jumping from the rooftop again and to give Miyabi a taste of her own medicine, the method works well. Speaking of the Hellraiser, Miyabi continues to become the source of terror for her peers. Her actions are really despicable here and although I have the feeling that she'll eventually be redeemed, I don't think I'll forget some of the things that she has done to her 'friends'. For every bully, there has to be a victim or two and we get to see these people in the form of Noboru and Tomoko. I can't help but feeling sorry for them although sometimes I wish they'll fight the people who oppress them a bit more. Thankfully their interactions with Onizuka seem to have bring them out of their shell at the very least. Overall, once again the series delivers the good characterisation, story, and resolution.

© memento 2003