I’m surprised a fistbump was not tied into this somehow
Last week’s GTO had Sana play guitar and sing for her dreams, but she fails — Onizuka even tells her she fails, but that she should find another way to accomplish her dream, as there are many ways to do so.
Summary of Great Teacher Onizuka 2014 Episode 7
- The bulk of the episode revolves around Kuzuki (Fuma Kikuchi) and his growing separation from Ayuna. He distances himself from everyone — his classmates, teachers, and his mom — and it culminates in him getting beat up by high school kids and somehow getting charged of assault anyways. The rest of the episode involves Fujikawa (Manami Higa) and her being unable to connect with her students because she’s afraid of them. This culminates in her not believing in Kuzuki’s innocence and getting yelled at by a pissed Onizuka. Thanks to Fuji-san, who explained Onizuka’s history at Shonan High to Fujikawa, and thanks to Fujikawa, who ended up proving to Kuzuki that she does care about her students, Fujikawa and Kuzuki’s drama has ended…or at least for Kuzuki, has it?
The sea is an excellent place to get drunk on sake. Or whatever they’re drinking
My Take
- Over the past few days, I had a theory in my head that I loved a lot, then started to debunk the more I ended up thinking about it. Instead of tossing it aside and not sharing it, I decided I’d write what I originally thought about anyways and break it down as I go on. You see, I thought I had an eureka moment and a, “why didn’t I see this earlier” moment at the same time. What was that moment?
- Ayuna/Kuzuki/Meiri’s relationship.
- As in, I think these three were close. Very close! They were all good chums and liked seeing each other. But somewhere along the way, they ended up drifting apart slowly. It may have gone off the rails when Ayuna and Kuzuki started a relationship. At that point, Ayuna was not happy, and started to distance herself from her and from her classmates — hence why she’s never around. What made me start to think about this was Ayuna ripping up a picture of the two together. Obviously something happened that caused them to be distant. That moment caused me to think back to Episode 1, where Meiri happened to be at the hotel where Mariko and Onizuka was. Was…was Ayuna and Kuzuki doing the deed then? Kuzuki hinted at something while speaking to Fujikawa — which, btw, confirms Kuzuki was the father — so that made me put two and two together and think that the writing for this show was way more clever than I could have expected.
- But it’s a good thing I let time pass by, because it made me think of how improbable the scenarios could be. For starters, while at the start of the series it did say three months had passed at the school, there’s no real indication of the time period in this show — and I’m pretty sure it takes a while before you know you’re pregnant. It was revealed at the end of episode 1 that Ayuna was pregnant well before then. I do still find it weird that Meiri was at the hotel during that time, but even though GTO’s pretty unrealistic, it still has humans doing human things.
- Then I thought about how it seemed way too simple. Meiri being jealous at Ayuna/Kuzuki’s relationship? That’s too simple, and there’s gotta be more than that — a lack of trust in a friendship, a past mistake, etc, it’d be kind of silly to build Meiri up to be a mysterious chick that’s out to get everyone but to have the shallowest reason to get back at Ayuna…I mean, it may not be shallow to people at the high school age, but I doubt GTO would have this type of backstory here. They know better. Also, Kuzuki and Meiri’s relationship hasn’t been highlighted in this series, so it might be a stretch to see how they are involved, though explaining that shouldn’t be much trouble.
- So I know for sure Ayuna/Meiri are on the outs, and they’re gonna have to repair it. But for now, they’ll have to deal with the consequences, and one consequence is Ayuna getting an abortion, and Onizuka and the crew finding out. It’ll be interesting to see how that’s handled.
- Just one thing that I want to mention since, you know, this was Kuzuki’s arc and time to shine: I got reminded of a GTO 2012 character. Let me know if this rings a bell:
- Has a burden that can’t be shared with anyone — classmates, teachers, parents
- Becomes extremely anti-social
- Is pressured by a mom to take over a hospital
- Is willing to throw away their life because there’s no turning back
- …Oh hey, I perfectly described Miyabi!
- …Ok, they obviously had different reasons for doing what they did, but I thought that the parallels between them was interesting. Certainly when Kuzuki admitted he didn’t care what those punks that kicked his butt at the festival did to him, it made me think back to when Miyabi tried to commit suicide. And of course, if you watched the graduation special episode of GTO, you know how Miyabi was pressured by her mom to get high grades and get into a hospital — kind of like with Kuzuki, though lol at his mom and worrying about her position in the PTA, that was funny.
- Anyways, they both have their differences, and I think the only thing to say about what Kuzuki just went through is this: boy, you would put yourself in this position huh? How could you be so irresponsible? Actually, better yet, why were you so irresponsible? Getting someone pregnant while in high school…and then sulking about it! Geez…
Shocked Onizuka
Pissed Onizuka
- So the other half of this episode was Fujikawa learning what it means to be a teacher. As I had said a few weeks ago, I thought Fujikawa seemed to be on the right track on getting respect from her students, but after the stunt she pulled in forcing the girls to apologize for the toy gun accusation without hearing from everyone was a signal that she had a ways to go. Considering she got rejected from going to karaoke with them, that was official. Should students be so cold to a teacher like that? Well, maybe? Obviously certain situations are different, but at that point, Fujikawa didn’t make a connection with a lot of the students, so how uncomfortable would that karaoke thing go if she was there? Very uncomfortable. Well, maybe with Onizuka there it might have broken the ice, but kids are kids and don’t know better.
- While I guess Fujikawa did need some tough love regarding her teaching, I don’t think I was a fan of Onizuka yelling at her like he did. It kind of reminded me of a temper tantrum when someone doesn’t get their way — those are rarely fun. I know that because I’ve had those temper tantrums. They’re usually never fun. I think back to GTO 2012 Episode 6 where Onizuka took Fuyuzuki to a river and ended up pushing her in. I guess that also wasn’t the best, but the situation had built up to a point where action was needed and change was necessary. This came off more like intimidation and thuggish. But that’s just what I thought.
- Whatever the case, her talking with Fuji was pretty cool since it of course showed how unbearable Onizuka was as a student and also might have given hints about this mysterious friend that he had killed. We still don’t have much info on that, but I’m sure they can’t just leave that aside since they keep bringing it up at every opportunity.
- The only thing I can say about Serizawa is…ahahaha…I called it! Now the pressure is on, since he ends up in a wheelchair. On a normal occasion, I would have been intrigued. But I’ve read Takehiko Inoue’s REAL. You got yourself a quota to reach, GTO 2014 Episode 8!
Anyways, those are my thoughts about the episode. What’d you guys think of it? Feel free to reply below!
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Justin
Justin is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. Anime & manga fan that likes to blog about anime and manga, is addicted to sports, and weak to crossovers. You can follow Justin on Twitter @Kami_nomi.
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