Guillotine

So, now that the spring anime series are starting to wrap up I thought I’d give my impressions of the shows I have followed. Out of  all the great shows this season I have only been following a few, but they did not disappoint.  I’m kind of sad that this season is ending since the summer anime listings don’t appear to impress me much at first glance. So far the only thing I am intending to look into is “GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class”. But you never know… Coming into this season I was only looking forward to K-On and Phantom, but it’s turned out to be quite a good batch of shows. So here we go… [More]

Okay… This news is a few days old already, but I wanted to write a bit about it as I happen to be in the midst of watching GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) for the first time.

It seems Russian Government censors plan to investigate the GTO Anime series to detrmine if it is as alleged by Rossvyazkomnadzor committee member Vladimir Annushkin to be “pedophiliac propaganda”. The show is currently airing on several local stations in Russia, and the accusations are an effort to have the show banned in that country.

In the past groups have managed to get other anime as well as American shows such as South Park banned in Russia. On the surface it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it’s things like this that set precendents that other groups in other countries may use to their advantage when calling for censorship bans, and that’s almost never a good thing.

In the specific case of GTO I would hope that whoever investigates will at least make it past the first 2 or 3 episodes. Currently Comcast is airing the series in the Anime Selects OnDemand channel, and I’ll admit the first couple episodes will give someone an incorrect and possibly negative image of the series as a whole. On first glance it simply appears that a former motorcycle gang leader in his 20s wishes to become a teacher so that he can fool around with high school girls. I know my jaw was dropping quite bit, and several occasions I’d say things like “No way… He’s not gonna… What were these people thinking when they made this???” But after a while you come to realize that Onizuka while being a bit out there has a set of strict morals, and is only out to protect his students.

After watching 15 episodes so far I’ve come to rather enjoy the show. The humor may not appeal to some people, but I’d say the show is pretty decent. Let’s just say compared to something like South Park this show is rather tame. The only real thing that could be faulted is that the show does portray sexuality used as a weapon of sorts.  Onizuka tends to always manage to get out of every situation with his pride and morals intact while at the same time he usually punishes those who choose to be immoral… In rather interesting, and sometimes shocking over the top ways.

I’d say if I had to sum up my impressions of the show… Each storyline begins by Onizuka being confronted with a potentially immoral or dangerous situation usually involving  students or other teachers who wish him ill, and as the rest of the story unfolds you wonder how is he gonna get out of this one? The stories themselves are tailored in a way that the audience can see an easy way out of the current situation, but it would involve doing the wrong thing. What usually happens is that Onizuka either comes up with (or more often than not just stumbles into by blind luck) a solution that is not totally obvious in which he comes out as the hero while simultaneously punishing the evildoers.

I can’t speak for the manga as I have not read it (yet).  But the anime once you get into it, and learn how Onizuka works in my opinion doesn’t warrant the label of “pedophiliac propaganda”, and it is a rather unfair judgement. It’s simply a matter of taking in the series as a whole rather than simply basing it on a few scenes which could understandably give that impression if viewed out of context.