List of Great Teacher Onizuka characters
This is a list of the characters that appear on the manga, anime and live-action series, Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO, for short).
Holy Forest Academy faculty and staff
Eikichi Onizuka
Eikichi Onizuka (鬼塚 英吉, Onizuka Eikichi)
- Voiced by: Wataru Takagi (Japanese); Steve Blum (credited as David Lucas) (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Takashi Sorimachi, Akira (2012 remake)
A 22-year-old, blonde-haired biker, virgin, and former bōsōzoku, Eikichi Onizuka is the protagonist of GTO. He graduated from a bottom-rung university by cheating and, as such, cannot get a decent job. His primary way of spending time is peeping up girls' skirts at a local mall. He is very athletic and has a second dan black belt in karate.
Onizuka decides to become a teacher. His initial training is in the Musashino Public High School, where he meets Nanako Mizuki. His experience taming the rowdy gangs in his assigned class hardens his convictions that teaching is the way to go, and when he learns of Mizuki's problems, he also decides to abstain from sexual experience with schoolgirls, opting to solve their personal issues for them, instead.
Unfortunately, he forgets to take the public teachers' civil service exam; as a result, no public high school will accept him, but he is still eligible for private school teaching. He manages to get a job at the Holy Forest Academy, despite the objections of Vice-Principal Hiroshi Uchiyamada, whom he continues to aggravate well into his tenure. One of the conditions of having the job at Holy Forest is that he must sleep at the school – in the storage room at the top floor, with roof access – and it is here that Onizuka officially starts his career in teaching, when he stops Noboru Yoshikawa from committing suicide.
Onizuka is put in charge of class 3–4, a class so bad it has driven past teachers insane and one to death. Not only does he survive their brutal, bullying tactics, but he also befriends his students, and the backbone to the story of GTO consists of his unique experiences in turning his students around and learning lessons of his own.
Onizuka is capable of great feats of strength, such as arm-wrestling over 100 men of exponential strength, (sometimes 3 at once) in a row and winning. He is also an experienced martial artist, as Onizuka is capable of fending off multiple opponents, even if they are well-armed. However, it was revealed around chapter 190 that because of all the physical damage he sustained since he started teaching, it resulted in a clotted blood vessel in his brain, and that a jolt to his head could either turn him into a vegetable, paralyze him, or kill him.
In spite of his impressive fighting skills, Onizuka is often roughed up by his students, and others, whenever he behaves badly. It could be speculated that deep down, Onizuka knows when he's acting immature, and allows others to keep him in line. An example of this is when he forces his students to dig for buried treasure during the Okinawa trip. Urumi Kanzaki kicks Onizuka into a hole, and later forces him to wear S&M garb and has him crawl around on all fours, with Urumi riding on his back. Another example is when Vice-Principal Uchiyamada has Onizuka over for dinner and hits him on the head with a wooden bench after finding out that he was acting lecherous with his daughter at a karaoke bar (Onizuka was playing "Where's The Nipple?").
His mode of transportation is a Kawasaki Z750RS Z2 motorcycle, and is also the protagonist in the GTO prequel, Shonan Junai Gumi.
It is shown throughout the series that Onizuka is also very lucky, as he always manages to squeeze out of tight situations. An example of this is when he must raise 8 million yen to live up to a promise he made to the 3rd year students. He received what he believed to be a winning lottery ticket, but it turned out to be false. However, he was given a raffle ticket which he kept but didn't expect for it to help his predicament, but ended up winning a Mercedes-Benz E-Class car worth the 8 million yen. He gave away the Mercedes in an act of kindness, and while it seemed unlikely for him to get the car back, it was returned to him in the last minute.
GTO-Shonan 14 days
In Shonan 14 Days, Onizuka revealed on a live television program that he nearly buried one of his students for thinking that she is dead. Although he denied the claim that he did this on purpose, the crowd did not take it and Onizuka was forced to leave Tokyo for a while until the outrage subsides. He goes to Shonan, a place where he grew up. There he met Shiratori, one of Fuyutsuki's friends and he learns that she is a caregiver at the White Swan Youth Home which houses kids from broken homes. He tells her that he is a teacher back in Tokyo and he probably could give her a hand in managing the kids at White Swan. Shiratori invites him to stay with them and help out, and Onizuka obliges in order to help the kids in the same manner he does at school.
Onizuka mentioned a little about his dad, who left his mom when he was younger for another woman when he shows Katsuragi his secret place, a place where he goes when he is stressed out or in trouble. Katsuragi thinks that she might have misjudged him and started to think of Onizuka on a different perspective after that.
GTO:Paradise Lost
The next stage for Eikichi Onizuka: Kissho Academy's Class G, a newly established class for young celebrities. But as Onizuka soon finds out, his new teaching assignment is no superstar paradise—it's a super problem class, feared by all!
Azusa Fuyutsuki
- Azusa Fuyutsuki (冬月 あずさ, Fuyutsuki Azusa)
- Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa (Japanese); Wendee Lee (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Nanako Matsushima, Miori Takimoto (2012 remake)
- A 22 year-old female teacher, employed at the same private school as Eikichi Onizuka, Azusa Fuyutsuki is the heroine of the series. Unlike Onizuka, she led a relatively normal life, graduating from Waseda University. Her quiet manner and moderate ideas are misleading, as she proves to be very tough on her own, which scares the overconfident, zealous Onizuka. To prepare him for the test which would determine his teaching career, she makes a mountain of jelly with eyes of Maguro tuna fish as fruits and imposes an impossibly tough schedule that would have killed anyone or driven them mad. Her field of expertise is Kokugo or Japanese language (English, in the live-action). She falls in love with Onizuka, but as both are quite reluctant to admit their affections and show them in the open, they claim they are "just friends". This friendship is not something major, except under the eyes of the cunning Suguru Teshigawara, who finds it most aggravating that a woman with her qualifications would fall in love with one with such a crude background as Onizuka. She has difficulty with the female students in her class, due to all the boys having crushes on her, but brings them around fairly quickly, after Onizuka's advice. She has a younger sister named Makoto Fuyutsuki.
Ryoko Sakurai
- Ryoko Sakurai (桜井 良子, Sakurai Ryōko)
- Voiced by: Yoshiko Okamoto (Japanese); Wendee Lee (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Yumi Shirakawa, Kuroki Hitomi (2012 remake)
- Ryoko Sakurai is the director of the Holy Forest Academy. She is a caring woman who believes that Eikichi Onizuka and his "methods" will work positively for the school, contrary to the beliefs of the faculty. The only time in the series that she did not approve of his behavior is when Onizuka endangered her grandson, Mayu Wakui, but she later admits this is due to his manipulative nature. She is also Daimon Misuzu's former teacher.
Hiroshi Uchiyamada
- Hiroshi Uchiyamada (内山田 ひろし, Uchiyamada Hiroshi)
- Voiced by: Yūichi Nagashima (Japanese); John Smallberries (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Akira Nakao, Tayama Ryosei (2012 remake)
- The vice-principal at the Holy Forest Academy, Hiroshi Uchiyamada is commonly seen throwing fits over two things: Onizuka the "parasite", and his beloved and frequently-totaled Toyota Cresta.
- According to a self-explained biography in the manga, Uchiyamada was born and educated in a small rural town. He was discovered as a prodigy and recommended to become a teacher at the Tokyo College of Education, where he first met his wife-to-be, Ryōko. 29 years of hard work eventually earned him his current house and position at the Holy Forest Academy. His daughter is Yoshiko Uchiyamada.
- Uchiyamada holds very conservative ideals on how peoples' backgrounds determine their future performance. Despite his attempts to thwart Onizuka's plans, Uchiyamada is not so much a classic villain than merely dogmatically serious about the job of teaching (at least in his mind). He is a not-quite-extreme example of the punishment an ordinary, older middle-aged, Japanese man takes from his home and workplace. He is forced to work with a young man like Onizuka, who easily breaks the rules and does things that don't make sense to him. His superior, Headmaster Ryoko Sakurai, seems to think it is fun to have a presence like Onizuka. At home, his wife, daughter, and dog openly disdain him in his often deluded imaginings, and feels that they're only satisfied with the luxuries that his work earns.
- Uchiyamada eventually accepts Onizuka's views of teaching, when the latter yells at and punches Uchiyamada, when he interferes with Onizuka, trying to save Urumi Kanzaki, on the verge of death, for the sake of his job. As Onizuka takes Urumi to an ambulance Uchiyamada contemplates on his 29 years as a teacher and realizes that he had stopped caring for his students and more for his job, and he even decides to save Onizuka from being fired. With Onizuka's help, he also reconciles with his family, though he remains viciously defensive, when Onizuka tries to make a move on his daughter.
- A running gag in the manga has Onizuka constantly destroying Uchiyamada's Cresta, mostly as a side effect of rescuing students, such as falling from the top of the school building and landing on the car. Another running gag involves Uchiyamada frequently getting injured, or assaulted by accident, from an oblivious Onizuka.
Suguru Teshigawara
- Suguru Teshigawara (勅使河原 優, Teshigawara Suguru)
- Voiced by: Tōru Furuya (Japanese); Doug La Rosa (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Kunihiko Ida, Yano Masato (2012 remake)
- Suguru Teshigawara is a ruthless, perfectionist mathematics teacher and a cum laude graduate of Tokyo University. He grew up trying to follow in the footsteps of his successful, older brother and father, the latter of whom is a high-ranking Parliament minister. He dresses very neatly and even wears a white velvet glove – his symbol of perfection.
- Teshigawara is obsessed with Azusa Fuyutsuki and her dedication and relatively clean, prestigious background – far past the point of stalking. The walls of his apartment, which overlooks Azusa's, is completely covered with photos of her, and keeps tabs on her every move in her apartment, with extensive surveillance equipment. He even has a large pillow with a full-body shot of Azusa imprinted onto it. Suguru ends up having to drape white cloth all over the walls to conceal his fetish, when he tries to invite her over to his apartment.
- Teshigawara absolutely loathes Eikichi Onizuka, not only because of his poor educational background, but because his students love him, and Azusa appears to love Onizuka more. As a result of his hatred, he pulls in a favor with the head of a local Parent-Teacher Association group, the mother of Hidemi Ohta, a student he tutors, whose father is a member of Japanese Parliament, eventually leading Onizuka to take a national high-school aptitude test, to prove he is capable of teaching. Sadly for Teshigawara, Onizuka places first nationally, keeping his position, much to his dismay and frustration. It is later revealed (exclusive to the manga) that his mental instability and fanatical perfectionism arose from the pressures placed on him by his father, who expected him to never fail at anything. His failures in his love life corroded his sanity which led him to kidnap Azusa and then failing that, to take over the school and declare it an independent country.
Hajime Fukuroda
- Hajime Fukuroda (袋田 はじめ, Fukuroda Hajime)
- Voiced by: Kazuhiro Nakata (Japanese); Richard George (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Sugi-chan (2012 version)
- The stereotypically macho-muscular gym coach at the Holy Forest Academy, Hajime Fukuroda (more commonly known as "Moleface", due to a rather large mole on the side of his cheek) is a graduate of a prestigious physical education academy. Fukuroda admires his body and does his very best to keep it, and those of his pupils (the female ones, in particular), in tip-top shape. He even enjoys famously macho theme songs at karaoke bars with his colleagues. However, he also has a closeted sexual longing for young girls – in his case, the aforementioned female students. He also as a curious habit of doing pushups when under extreme stress.
Tadashi Sakurai
- Tadashi Sakurai (桜井 ただし, Sakurai Tadashi)
- Voiced by: Katsumi Suzuki (Japanese); David Lelyveld (English)
- The 42-year-old English teacher at the Holy Forest Academy, Tadashi Sakurai is not very fluent at the language he teaches. His last name was changed to Sakurada in the anime, in order to avoid confusion with Headmaster Ryoko Sakurai, with whom he shares no relation. Though he makes few appearances in the earlier volumes of the manga, he gets a more important role when Miyabi Aizawa blackmails him into embezzling the funds for the class trip.
- In the manga, Miyabi uses Sakurai's fetish for looking up girls' skirts in the bathroom stalls, with a hidden camera, as blackmail, and his downfall comes at the hands of the police. In the anime, Miyabi blackmails Sakurai with pictures showing him as a cross-dresser, and he simply flees from school.
- A flashback in the manga reveals he was bullied a lot during his high school years. He sent a love letter to a girl, but she didn't share Sakurai's feelings, and as a result was beaten up by his male peers for even sending the letter, in the first place. One day, while Sakurai was skipping class, hiding in the boys' washroom stalls, the same girl needed to use the boys' washroom, because the girls' washroom smelled bad. Sakurai was able to watch her, leading to his fetish.
Naoko Moritaka
- Naoko Moritaka (森高 尚子, Moritaka Naoko)
- Nao Kadena is voiced by Kaya Matsutani in Japanese and Midge Mayes in English.
- Japanese live-action actor: Takizawa Saori (2012 remake)
- Naoko Moritaka is the eccentric, school nurse at Holy Forest Academy. Often acting as the teachers' muse, Naoko is quite helpful and knows her trade well, though she seems to derive some erotic pleasure from her regular blood donations. She's extremely attractive, and Azusa Fuyutsuki notes that she's heard "quite a few love confessions" about her from students.
- In the anime, she is replaced by a former street racing queen named Nao Kadena (originally from Shonan Junai Gumi, the prequel to GTO), who took the nursing position at the Holy Forest Academy, in order to help pay for her brother's surgery – a result of him racing in her place.
Itagaki
- Itagaki (板垣, Itagaki)
- Itagaki was originally one of Headmaster Sakurai's attendants, until he appeared to work for Misuzu Daimon, so as to help her rid the school of any useless teachers and students. However, it was Headmaster Ryoko Sakurai who ordered him to do so, as a ruse for Daimon to keep an eye on her and her actions. He was the one who gives a software CD to Takumi Ishida, a former student from Holy Forest, to shut down Daimon's network and surveillance control over the school.
Misuzu Daimon
- Misuzu Daimon (大門 美鈴, Daimon Misuzu)
- Japanese live-action actor: Nishida Naomi (2012 remake)
- Misuzu Daimon is the new vice-principal, hired during the second semester, after Vice-Principal Ippachi Maruyama's transfer. She was placed by the board, in order to weaken the position of Headmaster Ryoko Sakurai and to force Eikichi Onizuka to leave. To that end, she deploys a school wide intranet and gives each student and faculty member a palm device. Additionally, she institutes a point system for the faculty, in an attempt to cause Onizuka's resignation and employs a special force in the school known as the "Angels", to further control the school and its faculty. One particular Angel, Sho Shibuya, regards her as a surrogate mother and the only person he has no animosity towards. She sees school as nothing more than a business, and deems personal things like friendship to be utter nonsense and unrealistic in real life, this outlook on life stems from her time in her high school, where she was always the butt of bullying and cruel verbal abuse by her classmates because of her excellent academic performance, and also due to the escalating rumors that her parents were incarcerated in prison (according to the rumors, they were both arsonists, although this was never explicitly proven). However, through it all she was able to overcome only most of the pain through her teacher at that time; Ryoko, who gave her sincere support. In a moment of weakness, she set her school on fire, and was set to die if it wasn't for Ryoko rescuing her. However, she wasn't able to remember exactly who rescued her at that time, assuming that the fire fighters were the ones responsible for that, but it would only be years later that she would find out the truth from Ryoko herself.
Holy Forest Academy students
Noboru Yoshikawa
- Noboru Yoshikawa (吉川 のぼる 昇, Yoshikawa Noboru)
- Voiced by: Kosuke Okano (Japanese); Ron Allen (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Shun Oguri, Taishi Nakagawa (2012 remake)
- Noboru Yoshikawa is a student at the Holy Forest Academy, and did not have a good time before Eikichi Onizuka arrived, being the victim of bullying, mostly from Anko Uehara and her group (Miyabi Aizawa replaces Anko's role in the live-action on GTO 1998 Series). He is extremely good with video games and is somewhat of an otaku, but proves to be quite handy with making things. He also has an eye for girls and pays a lot of attention to them, as seen when Aizawa's plan to charge Onizuka with embezzlement when the group tries to identify the girls Aizawa paid to follow her plan.
- Anko's bullying is so bad it included bruises over most of his body as well as writing made with permanent marker around his private parts, it makes Noboru attempt to commit suicide twice, both times by leaping off the roof of the school, and both times resulting in him being saved by Onizuka, at the cost of Vice-Principal Hiroshi Uchiyamada's car (note that only the second attempt was caused by Anko's gang in the manga version; Noboru mentions some thugs in Class 2 as the cause of his first attempt). The two strike a quick friendship, which works for Onizuka, as Noboru has plenty of items that he wants to "borrow". His loyalty to Onizuka is by far the strongest, seen when he willingly sells his game collection to help cover Onizuka's debt.
- While on the school trip to Okinawa, he gets room assigned with Anko and her friends by Onizuka. In retaliation for Onizuka and Noboru's antics, he gets tied up and led away into the dense jungle by the girls, but they all end up getting lost and rely on him for help. Despite the abuse, he saves Anko's life after she falls off a cliff, getting separated from the others. As the rest of the events of the manga unfolds, Noboru begins to enjoy Anko's company enough that she begins to feel affectionate to him.
Anko Uehara
- Anko Uehara (上原 杏子, Uehara Anko)
- Voiced by: Akemi Okamura (Japanese); Midge Mayes (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Yua Shinkawa (2012 remake)
- Anko Uehara is an athletic girl with well-off parents who, like Kunio Murai, Miyabi Aizawa and Ruruka Hikita, has her own trio, in which she is accompanied by Naoko Asano and Mayuko Izumi.
- Anko is one of the first of the class to start trouble for Eikichi Onizuka, due to her and her friends' constant mistreatment of Noboru Yoshikawa. After the most recent assault on Noboru Yoshikawa leaving him severely beaten and humiliated yet again do they get taught a lesson by Onizuka, who literally spanks them at a karaoke bar and takes pictures of himself committing the act. Afterwards, Anko gets her mother, the president of the local Parent-Teacher Association, who believes her daughter is incapable of wrongdoing, to get Onizuka fired. This backfires, with the help of Noboru and Yoshito Kikuchi, who reveal her cruel, bullying nature in front of the student body and PTA. Anko tearfully confronts her mother about their relationship and perfectionist expectations of her, which leads to some family reconciliation and doesn't get any serious retribution from what she and her friends had done.
- She and her friends keep their distance from any other attempts by students to get Onizuka fired, despite giving their verbal support. While still cold to Onizuka, Anko allies with him, after being fed up with Miyabi Aizawa's manipulation of others for her own gain. When Onizuka is framed for embezzling funds for the school trip, she offers her credit card for use, but he flat-out refuses.
- On the school field trip to Okinawa, her mean streak towards Noboru continues to persist, even escalating, as he and Onizuka start playing pranks of their own against her and her friends. In an ironic twist, Noboru saves her life, after her own prank fails. During a near-death experience, a flashback reveals her bullying stems from growing up with an abusive, older brother, who in turn, was abused by their father.
- Shortly after, she develops feelings for him, and unsuccessfully tries to deny them. It takes an Onizuka scheme to get her to admit it.
Kunio Murai
- Kunio Murai (村井 國男, Murai Kunio)
- Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese); Rafael Antonio Oliver (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Shintaro Morimoto (2012 remake)
- The class "jock bully", Kunio Murai is not very bright and loses his temper easily. When Eikichi Onizuka arrives at the Holy Forest Academy, Kunio and his gang (consisting of Kouji Fujiyoshi and Tadaaki Kusano) attempt to kill him several times with seemingly innocent pranks, such as a cockroach planted in his school lunch. The plans backfire (such as Kunio eating the cockroach, instead) and he goes insane, nearly ending up with his face impaled on a pair of razor-sharp scissors. Onizuka then takes advantage of Kunio's 27-year-old mother, Julia Murai, after trouncing Kunio at several arcade games. It is later revealed that Julia was carrying her son at the age of 13, and her parents and boyfriend abandoned her, making Kunio overprotective of his mother.
- Kunio and his gang befriend Onizuka (inadvertently becoming his "partners in crime" whenever he is up to his antics), after he saves them from a group of ruffians, but not before Onizuka joins the ruffians and has Kunio bungee-jump off the Tokyo Bay Bridge. Kunio still gets very angry when Onizuka tries to make a pass at his mother, especially with the possibility that Onizuka may very well be his new stepfather. His fear of a new father also rears its head when he suspects his mother may be marrying a man who resembles Dr. Elefun from Astro Boy.
Kouji Fujiyoshi
- Kouji Fujiyoshi (藤吉 晃二, Fujiyoshi Kōji)
- Voiced by: Junichi Suwabe (Japanese); Steve Blum (Credited as David Lucas) (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Yuki Yamada (2012 remake)
- Kouji Fujiyoshi is part of Kunio Murai's gang, usually tagging along with him and Tadaaki Kusano. He was an unwitting part of Miyabi Aizawa and Tadashi Sakurai's plan to get rid of Eikichi Onizuka, by making him collect money for the annual school trip and then lose it. The money was planted into Onizuka's jacket, which he quickly spent in one night, thus leading to Onizuka being charged with embezzlement. Feeling responsible because he had also stolen some of the money to buy a new watch, Fujiyoshi dropped out temporarily and worked to earn the money back, and his actions helped lead to a school trip to Okinawa, courtesy of Onizuka.
- He is also romantically interested in Miyabi, to the point of hijacking a car to get her to take a ride with him.
Tadaaki Kusano
- Tadaaki Kusano (草野 忠明, Kusano Tadaaki)
- Voiced by: Tomoki Yanagi (Japanese); Brad Rowen (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Suzuki Nobuyuki (2012 remake)
- Tadaaki Kusano is part of Kunio Murai's gang, usually tagging along with him and Kouji Fujiyoshi. He doesn't do much, except help Murai with his mischief. He is quite attracted to Ai Tokiwa, to the point of obsession, even stealing her socks. Unfortunately, Daimon Misuzu's Angels used this to their advantage, and accuse him of also stealing her urine sample. His mother, in stark contrast to Murai's mother, is a rather portly woman that he seems quite ashamed of.
Tomoko Nomura
- Tomoko Nomura (野村 朋子, Nomura Tomoko)
- Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Debra Cunningham (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Miki Kuroda, Miyazaki Karen (2012 remake)
- A student in Eikichi Onizuka's class, Tomoko Nomura has a large chest (her cup size is F), but is not too bright, leading to people calling her Toro-ko (Toro meaning "slow" in Japanese; she is nicknamed Slo-mo-ko in the English version). After initially messing up her role in one of Miyabi Aizawa's plans to get Onizuka fired, she is cut off from Miyabi's group. Seeing her rather slow, clumsy nature, Onizuka enters her into a local beauty contest. He even arranges two porn producer friends to dress her up for the competition. Rather than read the given script for the acting category, Onizuka gives her a couple of action figures and she ends up doing an excellent improvised piece (with Vice-Principal Uchiyamada getting an accidental role). In the anime, Onizuka throws a cellphone on stage and she leaves a sentimental message on Miyabi's answering machine instead. She doesn't win, but she gets noticed by several television producers and begins starring in various commercials. Her young male manager, impressed with her natural beauty, and after falling in love at first sight, makes it his lifetime goal to help her succeed.
- She was friends with Urumi Kanzaki since childhood, and their close bond likely arose out of their opposite personalities (Tomoko is clumsy and rather docile with a heart of gold, compared to Urumi's intellect and potential to be savagely cruel).
- A side-story in the manga features Tomoko and her manager, also called GTO, only it stands for Great Tomoko Oppai (Oppai meaning breasts). In it, Tomoko's manager embarks on one very madcap adventure to save her from her dubious producers.
Miyabi Aizawa
- Miyabi Aizawa (相沢 雅, Aizawa Miyabi)
- Voiced by: Junko Noda (Japanese); Wendee Lee (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Aimi Nakamura, Kawaguchi Haruna (2012 remake)
- Miyabi Aizawa is another student in Eikichi Onizuka's class and hates all teachers severely. She is easily the most popular girl in school, though her queen-like manner can irritate anyone. At the beginning, she appears to be the ringleader of the classmates that want to get rid of Onizuka. Like Anko Uehara and Kunio Murai, she has her own crime trio, with Saeko Ijima and Chikako Shirai. She also used Tomoko Nomura for a blackmail trap against Onizuka, but the attempt is foiled and she expels her from the group, putting the blame solely on Tomoko. Originally just out to be rid of Onizuka on principle, she quickly makes it personal, when she loses to the Onizuka-sponsored Tomoko at a beauty contest.
- Miyabi is also behind the school trip funds embezzlement, where she blackmails Tadashi Sakurai into asking parents to submit the money in cash, and has Sakurai put Kouji Fujiyoshi in charge of collecting it. This allows her to steal the money from Fujiyoshi by cunningly playing on his family's tight financial situation, then planting it on Onizuka, who manages to lose it all in a step up, involving a faux female student hostess club and drugged drinks. However, Urumi Kanzaki, wanting to aid Onizuka in paying off the debt, cruelly sets her and her two friends up with an S&M group, where she is narrowly saved from being raped, when Onizuka crashes into their room of their hotel through the window after swinging from a rope, suspended by a blimp, all the way from another skyscraper. Of course, before he could actually save them, he demanded a sincere apology from Miyabi (in the anime, Urumi hires a group of yakuza, instead).
- Urumi later insults Miyabi at a carnival, leading her to reveal Urumi's secret. Urumi retaliates by posting a website where it claims to post pictures of Miyabi in the bathroom taken with a hidden camera. Miyabi attempts to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, but survives. The website is revealed to be a ruse.
- Miyabi was the one who led class 2-4 (as they were known then) onto the path of terrorizing teachers (previously, it was only Urumi who would occasionally do the terrorizing). Her motives behind this, however, varies between the manga and the anime.
- In the anime, Miyabi was a model student, who turns this way due to a teacher who indirectly caused one of her closest friends to commit suicide, over an illicit affair between them. This, compounded by her family problems, became the root cause of Miyabi's mistrust (and often outright hate) for all adults. Her personal convictions are shattered, when she was accused of attempting to murder the aforementioned teacher, as well as assaulting a member of the Japanese Board of Education (who she sees as taking only the teacher's side). She is shocked when Onizuka takes the fall for her, by announcing he committed all of the crimes she was accused of. Arriving in time to see Onizuka being led away in handcuffs, Miyabi finally asks Onizuka to forgive her for everything she had done. One would assume that this event has restored in Miyabi the capacity to trust in adults again.
- In the manga, Miyabi had a crush on their former, homeroom teacher, Ōgi, and started to believe that her feelings may be reciprocated, when he invites her to dinner. However, Ōgi already had a fiancé, whom he wanted to introduce to Miyabi. Crushed, she takes illicit photographs of herself (knowing that his hobby was photography) and tells the class that he took advantage of her. Things go out of hand when classmate Takumi Ishida takes matters into his own hands and assaults Ōgi. Distraught over the events (Ōgi and Takumi were fired and expelled, respectively), Miyabi decides to turn the class against all teachers, thus beginning class 2-4's rebellion.
- Miyabi's guilt, as well as her deteriorating family situation, makes her colder and distant to friends and classmates, leading to the events in the carnival and her rivalry with Urumi, mentally breaking her down. Her guilt is further compounded when she discovers just how much her friends still care for her. Things take a turn for the worse when she returns to her already broken family, forcing Onizuka to intervene, which results in him and a few students holding Miyabi "hostage", on the condition that her father demonstrates his love for her. The plot works, but this doesn't please Misuzu Daimon and her Angels, who then expose Miyabi's secret, forcing her to attempt a suicide from the school roof, but before that happens, Takumi, who had flown in from Okinawa, appears on the roof, to try to convincing her not to jump, despite the guilt she feels for all she's done. However, Onizuka accidentally bumps her off the ledge. Miyabi, not willing to end her life, after having settled her guilt, calls out to him, who leaps after her, landing on Uchiyamada's Cresta.
Urumi Kanzaki
- Urumi Kanzaki (神崎 麗美, Kanzaki Urumi)
- Voiced by: Kotono Mitsuishi (Japanese); Michelle Ruff (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Honda Tsubasa (2012 remake)
- The antithesis to the "dumb blonde" stereotype, Urumi Kanzaki is a prodigy, with an IQ over 200. She is also a heterochromatic, possessing different colored eyes: one brown and one blue. However, she is psychologically disturbed, having her fair share of hate toward teachers. Her genius is displayed repeatedly by such abstract actions as the detonation of time bombs (i.e. firecrackers in disposable boxes) and making a harmless snake look like a cobra using paper cutouts. Her intellect is also shown through actions, such as shouting curse words in French and being able to speak fluent Mandarin. On the trip in Okinawa, Yoshito Kikuchi noted that she can speak 5 languages, but ironically, she doesn't understand what her Gundam otaku roommates say.
- Her hatred for teachers stems from her time in elementary school. Urumi's teacher, Ms. Fujimori, while initially welcoming and receptive, wasn't able to handle her intellect properly, since she went to a second-rate college, and it was her first year teaching. Urumi's constant requests for the teacher's time, both inside and outside of school, as well as the fact that the lessons she wanted to learn from the teacher included extremely advanced, college-level subjects (such as differential calculus) eventually made the teacher snap. When Urumi interrupted Ms. Fujimori's lecture to correct her in front of the whole class, the teacher then told Urumi's secret to her class. While it isn't stated explicitly, it can be deduced that her intelligence is derived from her biological father, when Urumi tells Eikichi Onizuka that her mother had selected a sperm-donor, based on his intellect and nothing more. It is even suggested that her mother took the sperm from an American scientific genius (this information can be gleaned from a scene where Urumi and her mother visited some friends in the United States, and Urumi was led into a dark storage room by a doctor, who explains to her that her father is actually just a bottle of donated sperm); this also explains Urumi's natural, blond hair. Naturally, this caused a great deal of psychological trauma to Urumi, and quite an understandable hatred of teachers. It is still unclear what happened to Ms. Fujimori, as her last appearances in the storyline was begging Onizuka to help Urumi before something terrible happens to her.
- She is later found by Miyabi in a small apartment, and hired to torture Onizuka. Formerly a student at Holy Forest for a while, but stopped attending regularly after some time, she begins almost immediately, as she frames him for lechery and sends him to jail overnight, only to appear in class and on his homeroom roster the morning after. Onizuka's frustration with her vastly increases, when Vice-Principal Uchiyamada strictly advises him that he cannot inflict physical harm on her due, to her educational potential. Urumi is eventually able to turn Onizuka into her slave (more-or-less, her "genie") by threatening to have him arrested, after she fakes her death when he accidentally pushes her off a building.
- However, all this changes when she encounters her Ms. Fujimori again, awakening her deepest hatred and causing her to direct her wrath at the student body. Onizuka responds by bringing his biker gang to school and "kidnaps" her from class. He is finally able to get through to her by almost killing the two of them by jumping over – and nearly falling into – a gap at a suspension bridge, despite her attempts to convince him that she is not afraid of anything, including death. Onizuka makes her see past her trauma, however bad, just isn't worth messing up the present with (in the manga, he does this by having his biker friends share their life experiences with her). Inspired, she allies with Onizuka, and helps with his troubles.
- Despite her switch in allegiance, Urumi continues her feud with Miyabi, until Miyabi reveals her origins to the student body. Urumi retaliates by setting up a web page, where she promises to post pictures of Miyabi in her bathroom (Urumi had earlier placed a hidden camera), after a countdown timer reaches zero. However, the site reveals only a single photograph of Urumi, Miyabi, and Tomoko Nomura during their younger years. Urumi never had any intention of ruining Miyabi; she just wanted to scare her. Urumi attempts suicide at an indoor skiing arena by freezing to death, but Onizuka rescues her. It is after this incident that Urumi considers Onizuka to be her "favorite".
- She grows extremely infatuated with Onizuka, to the point of wanting to elope with Onizuka. Urumi takes a more stereotypical role of a character that prefers the use of violence, in response to jealousy – she is often seen beating Onizuka mercilessly every time he tries to fulfill his pervertedness. Urumi states Onizuka should wait for her hormones to start kicking in, because she's sure that she would have a bouncing body by then. Like Noboru Yoshikawa, her loyalty to Onizuka is extremely strong, to the point that she would consider suicide, if he were to die, feeling that her own life is worthless without him around.
Yoshito Kikuchi
- Yoshito Kikuchi (菊地 善人, Kikuchi Yoshito)
- Voiced by: Hikaru Midorikawa (Japanese); Ron Allen (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Yosuke Kubozuka, Takada Sho (2012 remake)
- Yoshito Kikuchi is one of Eikichi Onizuka's students. This computer prodigy (scoring the highest without certain "aid" in the country, on a standardized test) serves as class president and is also notorious for making pornographic composite photos, during Onizuka's arrival at the Holy Forest Academy. He tries to blackmail him into resignation with several pictures posted all across the school for everyone to see. Onizuka catches Kikuchi and instead of punishing him, hires him to make composite pictures of Azusa Fuyutsuki and other female teachers, much to his surprise.
- Kikuchi is eventually the second person to befriend Onizuka, and later helps Noboru Yoshikawa prevent Anko Uehara's mother, the president of the local Parent-Teacher Association, from getting Onizuka fired. Kikuchi is an amateur martial artist, having prior experience in judo and other techniques learned from Mayu Wakui (in the live-action, he claims he only knows it, and does not demonstrate this claim). It is revealed after the examinations that he was the one who switched Onizuka's test papers for a perfect score. When questioned about the actual results that Onizuka has, Kikuchi calculates it himself, and is thoroughly surprised at the score (it is unknown whether Onizuka actually did score perfect, or a score befitting his intelligence), and asks him directly, to which his teacher replies that he definitely received a perfect score.
- In the manga, a possible relationship is hinted between him and Ai Tokiwa, after some intervention and a forced embrace from Onizuka. In the live-action, Kikuchi has a long distance relationship with Tomoko Nomura.
Mayu Wakui
- Mayu Wakui (和久井 繭, Wakui Mayu)
- Japanese live-action actor: Shono Hayama (2012-SP Episode)
- The grandson of Headmaster Sakurai, Mayu Wakui attended Holy Forest Academy, until the incident involving Miyabi Aizawa and Ōgi left their class scarred and traumatized. Continuing with Miyabi's scheming to get rid of Eikichi Onizuka, she calls on Mayu's aid to return to Holy Forest and get him removed. This handsome, mischievous, unprecedented young man accepts and immediately rubs Onizuka the wrong way, which forces Sakurai to chastise his actions. Vice-Principal Hiroshi Uchiyamada takes the opportunity to suspend Onizuka, but the decision is overturned, when Sakurai, who knows her grandson needs to cease his self-destruction, begs Onizuka to try and bring him back onto the straight path.
- After unsuccessful attempts to have Onizuka out of the picture, Onizuka decides to settle their feud with a 100-man arm-wrestling match. Onizuka comes out undefeated, with Mayu left as his one hundredth opponent. Already physically and mentally unstable, he collapses. At the hospital, it is revealed he has been taking tryptophan, an emotional stabilizer, to treat his anxiety issues, but exactly what is the cause behind his condition is never revealed (there are several allusions where he speaks with Yoshito Kikuchi on the subject of dying young). There is also the suggestion that his instability is due to some familial or societal factor, when he explains that with enough finances from becoming a teen idol (he is in the same agency as Tomoko Nomura), he can expose those that have harmed him publicly. Additionally, a cover-up involving Mayu may explain his ready access to large sums of money, although he already comes from a wealthy background.
- Seeing how Onizuka has proved his worth, Mayu relents and stops his pranking, stating that he's glad to have met Onizuka, but it would have been better if he had known his teacher sooner. Although Mayu does not return to class, he occasionally shows up to assist Onizuka, whenever it appears the odds are against him, in terms of manpower.
Yūki Miyamori
- Yūki Miyamori (宮森 勇気, Miyamori Yūki)
- Japanese live-action actor: Utsumi Akiyoshi (2012 remake)
- Enrolled in Eikichi Onizuka's class, but never shows up, Yūki Miyamori is the son of the head of the local yakuza. When his "friends" did not show up for his mother's funeral (he claims they were only "friends", because of his father's status as a yakuza member), he became withdrawn and isolated, displaying symptoms of hikikomori. Onizuka only knew of his existence when he tried to get some high points in the point system, set up by Misuzu Daimon. One of the criteria to get more than 100 points is to persuade a student who has not attended class for over a year to return, thus, Onizuka sets out to bring Yūki back.
- Despite his family background, he is an ordinary boy who likes to play video games and would sneak out every 15th and 20th of each month in order to buy timetables for the bullet train. Onizuka and Noboru Yoshikawa manages to talk him out of his seclusion, saving Onizuka's salary in the process. He strikes a quick friendship with Noboru, when he returns to Holy Forest, and becomes somewhat of a defender of the weak, mostly via namedropping of his father's profession to frighten the school bullies.
Ai Tokiwa
- Ai Tokiwa (常盤 愛, Tokiwa Ai)
- Japanese live-action actor: Bando Nozomi (2012 remake)
- A transfer student to Eikichi Onizuka's class during the second semester and one of Misuzu Daimon's "Angels", Ai Tokiwa is adept at Tae Kwon Do, and holds an extreme grudge towards men, willing injuring them, no matter who it is. When Yoshito Kikuchi sees pass her innocent persona, Ai knocks him out cold, with the notion that he should inform Onizuka of what she's doing. After incurring the wrath of several high school students, they enter Holy Forest to confront Ai, with the intention of beating her to a pulp. Onizuka, with some help from Mayu Wakui and his friends, evens out the odds, while Onizuka heads to settle her personal demons.
- Ai reveals that prior to joining the Angels, she was gang raped by her ex-boyfriend and his buddies. Feeling insecure around any boy, Daimon recruited her into the Angels, allowing her to inforce her vengeance back at men. Onizuka sees through this façade – Ai is but a simple, frightened little girl, who only uses violence to deal, rather than cry it out. Realizing the truth, she breaks down and heavily cries. To make things up to her, Onizuka forces an embrace between her and Kikuchi, and though the two don't share mutual feelings for one another, it is hinted through the rest of the manga there is some form of affection and care between them. Ai summarily drops out of the Angels, and her allegiance with Daimon.
Sho Shibuya
- Sho Shibuya (渋谷 翔, Shibuya Shō)
- Japanese live-action actor: Shūhei Nomura (2012 remake)
- Sho Shibuya is a transfer student to Eikichi Onizuka's class and the leader of Misuzu Daimon's "Angels". In his former school, he was bullied to the point of insanity, reinforced with a flashback where he is stripped down to his underwear, with his classmates and even his teacher writing obscenities and symbols on his body with permanent markers. His own parents even thought of institutionalizing him, but instead, gave total guardianship over to Daimon. For this reason, he has a severe fear of parental abandonment, and keeps a tight, obedient relationship with Daimon (it is implied in another flashback that he was sexually abused by his mother, leading to a murder-suicide attempt that brought Daimon into his life as his counselor, before claiming guardianship status).
Takumi Ishida
- Takumi Ishida (石田 拓海, Ishida Takumi)
- Japanese live-action actor: Gaku Sano (2012 remake)
- A former student of Class 2-4, Takumi Ishida was expelled from Holy Forest after assaulting their homeroom teacher, Ōgi, with a baseball bat, when Miyabi Aizawa claimed accusations of rape. Although Ōgi revealed what really had happened, Takumi, feeling too guilty for his actions, retreated to Okinawa. However, he still kept in touch with Yoshito Kikuchi, using the pseudonym, Sunakujira (Sand Whale, in the English translations), and assists him throughout the series (Kikuchi did not know Takumi was Sunakujira). When Miyabi reveals the rape incident was a lie and attempts to set things right through suicide, Takumi returns to Holy Forest to convince her not to do it.
- He assists Itagake Kinoshita, when he is handed a CD program to shut down Misuzu Daimon's network and surveillance control over the school. Takumi questions Itagake's motives behind this, since he was working for Daimon, but shrugs it off, realizing these events mean next to nothing to him.
Friends of Onizuka
Ryuji Danma
- Ryuji Danma (弾間 龍二, Danma Ryūji)
- Voiced by: Isshin Chiba (Japanese); Ron Allen (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Shirota Yu (2012 remake)
- Ryuji Danma' is Eikichi Onizuka's drinking buddy and partner during their days known as the "Onibaku" in Shonan Junai Gumi that GTO is a sequel of. In the years since he went "straight", Ryuji has set up his own used motorcycle shop and profits greatly from it. He is the one who refers Onizuka to Holy Forest Academy, when he forgets to take the public teachers' civil service exam.
- Ryuji is not averse to showing Onizuka some tough love, such as refusing to lend him any money to cover the cost of the school trip to Okinawa – at least not until he clears up his own debts with Ryuji, although it can be interpreted that deep down, Ryuji is concerned for his friend's well-being; after all, the deeper the trouble Onizuka is in, the less likely Ryuji will ever see his money again.
Toshiyuki Saejima
- Toshiyuki Saejima (冴島 俊行, Saejima Toshiyuki)
- Voiced by: Kazuki Yao (Japanese); Jack Aubree (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Naohito Fujiki, Yusuke Yamamoto (2012 remake)
- One of Eikichi Onizuka's and Ryuji Danma's old friends from their bōsōzoku days in Shonan Junai Gumi prequel to GTO, Toshiyuki Saejima is a corrupt police officer, and spends his time selling seized police evidence. He tries to convince Onizuka to buy into his scams, such as selling goods off the locker, Mercedes-Benz vehicles, counterfeit Prada handbags, handguns, poppies, pandas, Chinese immigrants among other things and "testing" out weapons from crime scenes. He apparently also hires prostitutes on a regular basis, and attempts to get Onizuka to join in his operations, so as cut costs.
- Unlike Ryuji and Onizuka, Saejima seems to have difficulty in letting go of his bōsōzoku ways. Aside from his illegalities, he is willing to execute the psychotic Suguru Teshigawara in cold blood, during his rampage, so as to get a promotion, but also justifying it as "protecting the kiddies". Despite his ways, deep down, he is a good and reliable friend that Onizuka can count on and will always be there for him, even if it means his job (or his well-being).
Other characters
Nanako Mizuki
- Nanako Mizuki (水樹 ななこ, Mizuki Nanako)
- Voiced by: Yūko Miyamura (Japanese); Cindy Robinson (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Kirari, Tanuichi Risa (2012 remake)
- Nanako Mizuki is a student at the Musashino Public High School, in a class of troublemakers that Eikichi Onizuka is assigned to for teacher training. Initially, she agrees to set Onizuka up, seducing him into taking her back to his apartment, where she undresses for him. At that moment, some of the boys from the class take a picture of Onizuka and Nanako together, threatening to release it to the media, if he doesn't pay a large sum of money. However, Onizuka is able to "persuade" the boys to keep quiet, with a little help from his old biker gang.
- Despite the set-up, Onizuka agrees to take Nanako back to his apartment, after she insinuates he might be able to sleep with her. However, this is just a ruse, when she explains that due to her parents having no time for family bonding anymore, because of their tight jobs, Onizuka's small apartment reminds her of the time when her family used to live in these conditions and were much closer. This moment sparked Onizuka's revelation of actively resisting the urge to sleep with his female students.
- Onizuka solves her problem by walking into Nanako's home with a sledgehammer, bashing a hole in the wall separating her parents' bedrooms, assuring her the wall will not act as a barrier between Nanako and her parents. Her parents have the physical hole filled, but she realizes that time and her efforts can heal the spiritual rift in their relationship. To show her appreciation, she briefly, and without panties, flashes for Onizuka, promising that he'll be the one to take her virginity. She does not reappear in the manga or anime, after this.
Yoshiko Uchiyamada
- Yoshiko Uchiyamada (内山 田好子, Uchiyamada Yoshiko)
- Voiced by: Atsuko Bungo (Japanese); Kate Davis (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Erika Mabuchi, Komatsu Mizuki (2012 remake)
- The daughter of Hiroshi Uchiyamada, Yoshiko Uchiyamada is into designer handbags, ganguro fashion, and according to her father, "single handedly keeps the tanning salon industry alive". Although Eikichi Onizuka abstained from any sexual relations with students, he and Yoshiko meet at a karaoke place and strike a quick friendship, the connotations of which severely anger her father. The "gap" between Yoshiko and her father is already large to begin with, as she openly disdains him for his deluded imaginings and not living up to her own material expectations.
- It is implied in the manga that she may not be Hiroshi Uchiyamada's biological daughter, but the meat delivery man's, though this could be argued as another one of Uchiyamada's paranoid delusions.
Julia Murai
- Julia Murai (村井 樹里亜, Murai Juria)
- Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (Japanese); Cindy Robinson (English)
- Japanese live-action actor: Rikako Murakami, Yoshida Yo (2012 remake)
- Kunio Murai's, 27 year-old Julia Murai carried Kunio at the age of thirteen, and chose to run away to be able to keep him, when her parents disowned her and Kunio's father abandoned her. Julia works as a crane operator at a local construction yard, and is known to wearing skimpy outfits and no bra. On occasion she would also model bridal gowns for her boss (which led her son to think she will be married to a man who looks like Dr. Elefun). Although Eikichi Onizuka swore off relations with female students, their mothers are still available, thus, he attempts to woo her on multiple occasions, even asking her out once.