Anime: Gokusen

Gokusen,

Despite all the bad review and how everyone says Gokusen is similar to GTO, I am not sure I agree with everyone else. I still haven’t had a chance to watch GTO, so I cannot compare Gokusen with it. Hopefully, this might bring a newer perspective to this animation. (Warning Contain Spoilers)

Animation:

How should I put this, the animation is actually quite ugly. This is the first time I’ve seen such a badly designed characters. Even Kumiko, the main teacher is rather badly drawn, not to mention the support casts. Another example is Shin, who is supposed to be a good-looking male student, but somehow this also failed to delivery. I am not sure did the production company designed it this way to try to tell us that even ugly looking characters can create interesting story, or is it simply that they can’t draw. But since they did show off some of their drawing skills in one of the episode (the one where they go to Okinawa and there are high school girls coming out of a museum, where the girls is actually what you would expected to see in most school type animation), so I think the first suggestion is the reason.

However, the badly designed characters had little or close to no affect to damage the enjoyment of the story. After all, the students are supposed to be the rogue type, so I guess it does suit them perfectly. Other than the character design, there aren’t much specials or problems with the animation. The frame rate, overall background design and other technical issues are what you would expect from a school type animation, so I will give it a 5 here.

Music:

This animation has surprising little background music, so it is hard to rate it here. But I quite enjoy the dynamic OP and the rather 60’s, 70’s style-like EP. I really enjoy the OP, especially the chorus part, and the lyrics of the song matches the OP image and the theme of this animation, so nice work here. Moving to voice over, the overall voice over is fine, but not outstanding. They are fairly typical but suited the character well. However, sometimes the voice over can be a bit over the top.

Story and Character:

The story is quite simple, it is pretty much your activity of the day type story with a main central plot that is often weak and somehow lost it way in the animation. Gokusen fallow this similar line, although they did not loses the central plot that much. However, despite these fairly typical storyline, I must say they are still enjoyable to watch, especially earlier on where watching Kumiko trying cover up her identity, and how she resolve each situation for her students are quite a treat to watch, and they are often hilarious and entertaining. Although I must say, in the last few episodes, this sort of things does get quite tedious to watch, and the story dies down a little, and the last episode is a bit hopeless as not much of a resolution was shown.

To character development, how should I put it? Other than conventional, there aren’t many words I can use to describe it. The development is pretty much what you would expect from a soap opera, the bad ass students are at first hard to cope with and will not listen to the new teacher, but her dedication makes them feel guilty and help her out in the end. Gokusen is exactly that, but since Kumiko is a gangster, this background allows for more development, such as the non-stop punching, over the top gangster dramatic cries etc. Still, you might think it is a bit stupid and it is no doubt a bit boring, but yet this sort of slice of life animation is still nice to watch once in a while as her Kumiko unique background and the mix of being a school teacher is quite fun to watch.

Value and enjoyment:

This animation is no doubt not the best in any particular way, but I think it still deserve a decent scores as the story and character development are well suited for a light hearted entertainment, and I do think they did a fine job here to make me watch such ugly character design until the end (as I am a highly critical person in this sort of things). So, Gokusen must have done something right to keep me entertaining. I am giving it 7 here.

Gokusen is 13 episodes. Its fast paced by nature.
The premise is a female teacher who's yakuza background has given her extranormal fighting abilities and street smarts.

She uses it to help out her delinquent students while at the same time, she has to hide her background because she really loves her job.

Its a great premise and each episode explores every facet of such a superhero life.

And when was the last time you saw a female super hero with normal sized breasts? With the state of the industry nowadays which seems to appeal to pedoes and fetishers, its hard to find a gem like this one. Its genuinely funny as well.

The only thing about this anime is that its story is not complete. You have to read the manga for the rest. GTO can bite me.

The J-drama was a lot better. ^_^;;;

Great Teacher Onizuka is just one of those animes that stands out for its blunt concept. A teacher who is an ex-gangster that kicks ass for his students.

Well, sometimes production companies just make such a huge profit, that they or other companies decide to slightly manipulate the concept and attempt to make a mint out of the same process. Fortunately for them, fanboys/fangirls swarm to these new series - completely aware that they are being manipulated - and absorb a much more senseless, dilapidated clone of their original favorite. Why people do that, I will never know; however, Gokusen is a poor result of a former success.

My only positive statement about this anime is that the J-drama which proceeded it was much more of an impact than this anime. I would highly recommend to those who were disappointed by this series to check out the drama.

Yamaguchi Kumiko, daughter of a yakuza boss.

While she could easily take over the family business, Yamaguchi "Yankumi" Kumiko has much more interest in becoming a teacher. With discretion she is somehow staffed in Shirokin Private School, although she finds herself in charge of the worst possible group of delinquent students. It seems as though only Yankumi's intense upbringing as a yakuza will be the only effect on this group, while all in all not getting caught by the staff in place.

The plot is a bit more stringed up than GTO's since getting caught would be a much more horrible circumstance for her than Onizuka's. It doesn't really focus particularly on the students' problems as much as it does Yankumi getting caught, either. The biggest weakness I believe is making Yankumi too manly. Because Gokusen tries to boost up Yankumi's fearsome attitude too much, it doesn't make her appeal too much as a woman at all. I can understand that she isn't meant to be a stunning, giant-breasted babe, but it gets to the point where she can't even remotely think feminine at all. Thus, it rids the series of the attractiveness of the main character. This is rather heavily biased on my part, but I feel that my opinion might be shared amongst many others who felt disappointed by this series, so stating this isn't wrong.

The idea of a character in this show is similar to a 2-dimensional picture drawn by a 7 year-old. Each character had their own backstory, but the way it was presented lacked any maturity.[/i] Also, there is enough violence in this series to easily spend time criticize wrongdoers, but not anywhere near enough time to find out why they are wrongdoers. A series like this would need another 13 episodes to possibly gain the depth necessary, but by doing that the humor would have gone to hell. Therefore, Gokusen did end at the right time.

Okay on sound.

Probably the best thing about this anime is Yankumi's voice actress. She isn't particularly popular, but I really like the color in her voice. I suppose despite Yankumi's masculinity, I could give her the credit of sounding female.

The opening and ending are okay, although I don't particularly feel anything for either of them. The same for the background music.

Overall: With all of my bashing, it's not hopeless.

While the animation isn't particularly wonderful, I can understand the producers' intent to get a little bit of variety in the proportions. I think the animation looks a little too bubbly, but this is once again my personal taste. Also, the coloring and ink lines looked particularly thin and rigid. As I proceeded further into the series, this effect on the eyes made it feel as though the screen was covered with splotches of bright, nervous colors, with lines as references to the eyes just barely making out the shapes of objects. It was rather frustrating enough for me to not even give this anime a 7 for score.

I don't intend to ever watch this again. I'd rather watch the drama instead, since it covers a much greater span of time, and also focuses a bit more on all of the main characters instead of Yankumi's showdowns.

Also, despite my criticisms, I could recommend this series to quite a bit of people. I'm certain people who like GTO will appreciate this series, although avid fans may find it a bit disappointing. Also, newbies to anime could get a glimpse of the yakuza and street fighting in Japan. I just believe it can't compare even to series that are good but hard to recommend.

well im just done with this so this is a fresh outta gokusen review, i found this anime to be an enjoyable watch while some other animes on the same subject are better, more in-depth, this is a light hearted quicky.
animation: a little above average, nothing being an eyesore.
sound: liked it a lot, voice acting was good, and the music goes well with the show and it doesn't get in the way, the opening is very energetic, but the ending was unmmemorable
story: this has been done before with way more force and intent, still the story is good, so i can say it's entertaining.
character: great, simple desgin, nothing flashy, well defined (you don't need to tell appart 2 characters by the coloring on the hair) but very stereotypical, the development of them is also good for such a small ep count.
value: good, entertaining, i don't think i would rewatch it though.
enjoyment: same as value

A nice little series which would be moderately enjoyed by school drama fans such as myself. This series did have a lot of potential in the core storyline but it didnt live up to my expectations. In the end it was just trying too hard to recapture the feelings from Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO), which did a much better job at fleshing out the characters. Because of being under the GTO shadow it falls flat on its face and what we get is a mediocre, cliched school drama with the same themes and same characters in a toned down ripoff of GTO.

I'd like to say that it was unique in its own way but unfortunately its not. There were a couple of truly funny moments here and there but its all been done before, and in the end has nothing new to offer. I'd recemmond it to school drama fans for a casual watch but others should find GTO as the best in the genre.

Animation
The animation wasnt bad generally, but the character designs were ugly.

Sound
Average OP, Good BGM and ED themes.

Story
Story could've been a lot better as the premise actually had a lot of potential and more could've been done.

Character
In the end too much of a GTO ripoff. Instead the protagonist is a woman but harbours the same tuff-guy attitude Onizuka had in GTO. Other similarities exist as well but lets just say its completely unoriginal.

Value
Just a casual watch for the fans of the genre. Others should stick with GTO.

Unoriginal, uncreative, but nevertheless enjoyable and fun to watch.

The animation is done well, although one might have a bit trouble with the style since it's not a common one. The mangaka uses a very simplistic style which makes it look like there is very little detail, but it's still enjoyable once you get used to it.
The movements of the characters are sometimes a bit stiff, but that's not enough to give it a bad mark.

The voices are done well and they fit the silly comedy of the series. The OP-song is genki and the ED-song is pretty weird, more like an ending of a drama. But although none of them are beautiful, they're okay.

The story is pretty decent. There are silly episodes and there are decent episodes, but usually it's all about teachers trying to do good things for their students - where usually the teacher is Yankumi. They maintain a level of comedy throughout the series, while they also manage to put in some action and a bit of seriousness as well. But still the focus is mostly on comedy.
Unfortunately they never manage to become a really funny show. They have some nice scenes and funny jokes, but in the end it still wasn't that funny after all.

The characters are pretty much stereotype. A whole lot of losers who can only fight, since that's the reputation of the school. They don't evolve too much, but they're supposed to be like that. Yankumi on the other hand also doesn't change much. She ends pretty much the same as she started, which isn't such a good thing for the series either.
Add to that that the series ends a bit too soon, without exploring the entire gag about the Yakuza and Yankumi, and this series is just a nice watch, but nothing more.

The value of watching this series is therefor also mostly a 'watch and wipe', since the jokes aren't funny enough and the series doesn't have enough substance to be a great show - but it's still good enough to watch once.