The Shrine

This is something I've followed for a long time and I can never quite decide if it's brilliant or just crazy. Maybe the author has a split personality or some similar problems. The premise of GTO is roughly Matrix meets Mafia. You got the main character, Onizuka, who is a teacher in a junior high school. He got a bunch of problem students who seems to have power from the two aforementioned entities, but that's okay since his fighting power is comparable to DBZ entities. His students has a whole range of problems from abusive parents to rape to whatever, and generally the problems are solving by punching the offending party until they almost die and then they see the error of their ways (kind of like One Piece).

The story definitely has a 'take justice into your own hands', and that in itself isn't terrible since it's not exactly a new idea. The problem is that most fictional entities that take justice into their own hands usually do so because whatever counts as justice in their world isn't quite up to the par. This isn't true in the world of GTO. Even Onizuka, who is apparently DBZ-powerful, has been arrested by police multiple times (he said the jail is like a second home to him). In the latest story we see one of Onizuka's converts decide they'll just sexually molest people who sexually molested other students as payback, and when asked isn't that against the law, they're basically like we got connection in the Mafia and the police so they're above the law. This is the one story where you genuinely would wish something bad happen to the characters who are supposed to be the protagonists, and not just because those guys are stupid (I wish most of the main characters in shonen manga would die), but because they're genuinely pathetic human beings.

The point of GTO seems to be if you're handsome/beautiful and you know Kung Fu, and you've friends in the Mafia or the police, then whatever your definition of justice is okay. If you're Urumi that means you can post naked pictures of Miyabi, your best friend on a porn site due to your 'hackerz' skill. However where this cycle of suck breaks is that Miyabi, who pretty much has unlimited powers in the GTO universe, never retaliates even though she attempted suicide when she found that out. She has the world's #1 hacker on her side (Sakunijira), and it can easily be something like "My hackerz skill has eliminated Urumi from the world." She's got Skateboard Mayu who is nearly DBZ-powerful and seems to complete immunity to the law.

In fact, although Miyabi for the most part is the antagonist for much of the series, apparently she is always aware that killing people or ruining someone's life is supposed to be bad thing and even if there's no lawful consequences, this is not something you're supposed to do other human beings. Everytime she does something you can see she tries to convince herself that it's justified, which means she is actually quite aware that what she doing is totally wrong so she needs to convince herself that it's justified. It's actually pretty ironic since the protagonist, mostly Urumi, literally just goes, "I decided to kill/rape/whatever Miyabi because she messed with us first." Even Onizuka was going to let Miyabi get raped if she didn't pay him money for his service. I suppose you can say this is something written by a guy that should be locked behind bars, except there's still characters like Miyabi that seems to indicate it's not just the work of a madman.

In one of the latest arc, one of the students has an abusive parents, so Urumi framed the parent for child molestation, and then after realizing that'll only get the guy 5 years in jail, Urumi then framed the guy for counterfeiting currency so he gets life in prison. And apparently she's supposed to be the good guy. And in terms of the power hirearchy of GTO, she's not even that powerful. If Skateboard Mayu or Sakunajira is involved in anything, the person would literally disappear from the face of planet without a trace of evidence.

And despite the series's extreme exaggeration of character's powers, it sometimes does remember that these are still, after all, just junior high kids. There's one story where Urumi and Miyabi are at a UFO catcher doll machine and got into a dispute, so they settle the difference by seeing who can catch one first. Urumi goes uber nerd mode and calculates the velocity of the crane and everything else, and then totally misses whatever she's trying to catch. Miyabi says nerd power isn't going to do it, you got to use manual dexterity, instinct, and probably the Force too, and then manages to catch one and was celebrating feverishly but Urumi kicked the machine as Miyabi's lifting the prize out, so she dropped the doll too. When Miyabi asked why Urumi did that, Urumi replied that since she has instinct and the Force it must be easy to do it again, and Miyabi is fuming because you can tell clearly she only lucked out on that attempt.

The J-Drama was fucking ridiculous(ly good).

I found most of GTO that doesn't involve Urumi to be very good, but unfortunately she's involved in the vast majority of the later arcs. Urumi literally has no remorse commiting unspeakable crimes to her classmates just because she was born as a test tube baby and her mother doesn't spend too much time with her (but is not even abusive) and the series always presents it as if Urumi is right.

Skateboard Mayu's arc is actually really good. You're talking about a character who has literally every kind of power plus diplomatic immunity, and he's dispensing his brand of justice on the world for some reason that was never stated. Onizuka beat him in a 1 versus 100 arm wrestling match and basically said that while he doesn't disprove of what he's doing, don't confuse a child trying to escape from reality with justice (which is what Mayu has always been doing). Despite the greatly exaggerated powers, ultimately these guys are just a bunch of junior high schools trying to be cool. Skateboard Mayu might be the coolest kid of them all, but he's still just a kid and his justice is still nothing more than a child's fantasy. It's only in Urumi's case where fantasy somehow turns into reality where her hackers skills actually was eonugh to kill people, which is riduclous since she's nothing compared to Sakunijira who is absolutely loyal to Miyabi's cause.

Here's one arc that highlights the real problem with the philsophy of GTO. There was a troublesome student named Ai (probably not in the drama series) who is doing nasty stuff to people, so Onizuka spanked her in front of everyone while lifting her skirt so everyone can see her panties. I'm pretty sure doing this would get you kicked out of whatever school you happen to belong to. It's fine that the author wants to drive a point of 'don't compromise to authority' and maybe Ai really deserved to be punished like that, but if you want to hold your stand you should be fired because that's not something any school would find acceptable. But obviously Onizuka doesn't get fired and it actually gets worse with his student converts exacting the same brand of justice with no retaliation. Honestly a lot of them should have been expelled for doing the stuff they do. That doesn't mean they're necessarily the bad guys but that's just the price you got to pay for taking justice into your own hands. Sakunijira got expelled for punching a teacher, and toward the end we have people basically killing/raping/burning down the school with no consequences.