GTO Revival (2024) [Special Review]

GTO Revival; or, A New Lesson
     Even if you don’t have these, you are you. You’re the cutest.
I have to start this review with a big thank you to Rise from Phoenix Talks Pop Culture Japan because without her, I would have completely missed out on the info that FujiTV actually cooked up a GTO Revival special with Takashi Sorimachi returning to his legendary role(!) Indeed, we live in the age where heroes of the 80s and the 90s keep coming for one last hurrah, from Indiana Jones to Batman, but I have never imagined in my wildest dreams that this phenomenon would also impact the GTO franchise.

Release Info

Directed by: Yoshihiro Fukagawa Starring: Takashi Sorimachi, Sae Okazaki, Rikako Yagi

Language: Japanese Original Title: GTOリバイバル Runtime: 91 min

Synopsis
26 years after the start of his unconventional career, and teaching the first class of high schoolers, Eikichi Onizuka works as a… food delivery man. However, he is soon called in by one of his former students who works for the Ministry of Education. Onizuka is asked to investigate a private school which is plagued by an influencer personality known as Judge-or-Laugh. Onizuka steps into action to free students and teachers from cyber-terror.

The Age of Cyberbullying
Honestly, as soon as Takashi Sorimachi appeared together with obligatory cameos from original cast members of the drama, I had a big smile on my face. On top of that, when a remix of the Poison theme tune by Sorimachi and Blue Encount kicked in, it was pure icing on the cake.

That being said, this TV special is not a perfect revival of the drama that manages to capture the lighting in the bottle, and understandably so. It’s been a heck of a long time since we saw Sorimachi’s GTO on the screen, and this episode has a lot of catching up to do to reintroduce the character into modern age.

The main conflict of the story is very interesting because it concerns all the schools across the globe: cyberbullying. It’s very exhilarating and cathartic to see Onizuka’s take on the matter, but his approach is mostly recycled stuff you’ve already seen in the drama episodes and the theatrical movie: With his unconventional approach, Onizuka empowers the victims and makes baddies confront their inner trauma.

Unfortunately, getting to the gist of Onizuka’s modus operandi is repeatedly interrupted by the episodic and disjointed narrative of the TV special that throws lots of new characters and constant exposition at you within the span of 90 minutes. As a result, this episode feels like a pitch for a new GTO season crammed into a movie format. This, unfortunately, doesn’t work well.

With regard to performances, Takashi Sorimachi IS (and will always be) Great Teacher Onizuka. This man is literally “too cool for school”, even when he is 50 years old. I also enjoyed the performances by Rikako Yagi, Mei Hata, Kosuke Suzuki, and Yosuke Kubozuka. Apart from numerous easter-egg cameos, there’s one that particularly stole my heart at the very end of the special, but I refrain from any spoilers.

Recommendations
All things considered, I enjoyed GTO Revival more than the theatrical movie from 1999, but still it doesn’t achieve the level of the classic drama. It’s an okay story for a one-time revisitation of GTO. However, I wouldn’t like FujiTV treat this as a backdoor pilot for a potential continuation of the drama next year. My thanks go to Skeweds Translations for translating this special.Overall score: 7/10

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