Eikichi Onizuka is a classic Anime and Manga character. In Japan, his live action TV show remains one of the most popular of all time. Being the main character of four different manga over the past twenty years certainly has helped, but ultimately this is because the great teacher himself has been, and is still, a formidable inspiration. From his silly antics, beating up and getting beaten up, and inspirational speeches and gestures, Onizuka has become a modern manga great who has entertained many and has given hope to even more. If you’ve never read any of the GTO series, I highly implore you do, though I bet most of you are at least familiar with it. Like some of you, I have a long history with one Eikichi Onizuka, one that definitely pre-dates our releases of GTO: The Early Years and GTO: 14 Days In Shonan, and I want to talk about it.
My first experience with the great teacher that is Onizuka was way back in 2004. What a time 2004 was if you were a manga fan living in either the U.S. or Canada. It was the beginning of the manga boom, where more and more manga was starting to be released stateside, where the art-form and story-form was gaining popularity, where we would start to see big manga sections in Barnes & Nobles and the now and unfortunately defunct Borders. I was only twelve at the time and I was finally delving into the world of manga past what Shonen Jump was offering. Having read much of the stuff by Clamp, Love Hina, and Kodocha (which still holds up quite well), like others during the time, I had fallen in love with manga and I wanted more. I forget how exactly, though it was most likely through the advertisements found in old Tokyopop books that made up the majority of manga-shelves at the time, but I stumbled upon the existence of GTO and decided to purchase it. Yet, no sooner did I purchase it and tried reading the first few chapters did I decide that I hated the work and literally left the book it in the mall where I had bought it. Literally, I left it behind a potted plant on a ledge and hoped for the best. It was just too much for little twelve year old me.
A few years later, at a point where the original GTO was starting to get hard to find, Tokyopop began releasing the title that we are now just about to finish, GTO: The Early Years. I was older (and I’d like to think I was at least a little smarter too) at this point and I had wanted to give the series another shot. In short, I loved it. I found the characters entertaining, the story lines engaging, the fights fun, and the whole badass/yanki attitude of the entire thing very enjoyable. Most of all, I was upset at my 12 year old self for not enjoying the original GTO, because it was now very hard for anyone to find all 25 volumes of the series. If you’ve been following the manga industry since the mid 2000s, you know that a couple years before their demise (semi-demise? I’m not really sure.) Tokyopop stopped publishing all of their comics that they licensed from Kodansha. It would be years before we ever saw the conclusion to Samurai Deeper Kyo and Ravemaster, and other titles like Getbackers disappeared from America completely. GTO: The Early Years was one such manga.
If you’re reading this post, you should know that Vertical finally picked up this title and released it, but in the interim in between tokyopop’s release and ours, I was able to get my hands on all of the original GTO. A few years ago, a friend of mine posted a status asking if anyone wanted to buy the manga from him for a discounted price, and I snapped it up. Boy, was that the right choice. I fell in love with that manga. I fell in love with what the manga was doing, the classmates, and most importantly, Onizuka himself. His excursions of trying to court women had continued, and honestly were as funny as ever, but his stakes were even higher; Instead of just defending his friends, he’s trying to give his classmates someone to look up to and count on. No matter how tough the situation or how much physical danger he may find himself in, if you’ve read the series, (or it’s prequel or sequel) you know that he succeeds. Smiles and tears the entire ride. Truth be told, I had a picture of the last page of the manga as my phone background for a good year.
When Vertical announced that they were picking up the rest of The Early Years and 14 Days Of Shonan, I was ecstatic. This was way before I ever joined this company as an intern, and is actually probably one of the reasons I really started to fall in love with this company. Getting to read 14 Days Of Shonan and seeing Eikichi continue doing what he does best makes me happy every time I pick up a volume. Getting to finish The Early Years, watching Eikichi grow up (well, who knows if he ever really did) to become the greatest teacher that he is, has been wonderful. I’ve been reading manga for a long time, and the entire GTO franchise is one that has been with another, from the beginning, in one way or another. I love Onizuka, and if you don’t, you should tear open a space in your heart and let him settle in. You’ll be glad you did.