This is a list of the major and minor characters that appear in Great Teacher Onizuka (abbreviated GTO), which is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tōru Fujisawa. Also included are characters from the manga, anime, and live-action series.
Holy Forest Academy faculty and staff
Japanese live-action actor: Takashi Sorimachi, Akira (2012-Remake) A 22 year-old, hormonal, blonde-haired biker, virgin, and former bōsōzoku, Eikichi Onizuka is the protagonist of GTO. Onizuka was the protagonist of series author Tōru Fujisawa's previous series, Shonan Junai Gumi. He graduated from a bottom-rung university by cheating and, as such, cannot get a decent job. His primary way of spending time is peeping up girls' skirts at a local mall. He is very athletic, as he can bench press 150 kg (331 lbs), has a second dan black belt in karate, and claims he performs 500 push ups, 1000 pull ups and 2000 Hindu squats daily. His mode of transportation is a Kawasaki Z750RS Z2 motorcycle.
Through the events explained in the manga, Onizuka decides to become a teacher, even though it is implied he has an IQ of about 50. His initial training is in the Musashino Public High School, where he meets Nanako Mizuki. His experience taming the rowdy gangs in his assigned class hardens his convictions that teaching is the way to go, and when he learns of Mizuki's problems, he also decides to abstain from sexual experience with schoolgirls, opting to solve their personal issues for them, instead.
Unfortunately, he nearly messes up by forgetting to take the public teachers' civil service exam; as a result, no public high school will accept him, but he is still eligible for private school teaching. He manages to get a job at the upper-crust Kissho (Holy Forest) Academy, despite the objections of Vice-Principal Hiroshi Uchiyamada, whom he continues to aggravate well into his tenure. One of the conditions of having the job at Holy Forest is that he must sleep at the school - in the storage room at the top floor, with roof access - and it is here that Onizuka officially starts his career in teaching, when he stops Noboru Yoshikawa from committing suicide.
Onizuka is put in charge of class 3-4, a class so bad it has driven past teachers insane and one to death. Not only does he survive their brutal, bullying tactics, but he also befriends his students, and the backbone to the story of GTO consists of his unique experiences in turning his students around and learning lessons of his own.
Onizuka has incredible physical resilience. On more than one occasion, he has fallen from heights that would instantly kill most people and claims to have a sort of healing factor, as he healed from a broken arm in less than a day, and even endure multiple gunshot wounds. Onizuka often presents his strength in unintentionally flamboyant ways, such as arm-wrestling over 100 men of exponential strength, (sometimes 3 at once) in a row and winning. His fighting abilities are not to be taken lightly either, as Onizuka is capable of fending off multiple opponents, even if they are well-armed. However, it was revealed around chapter 190 that because of all the physical damage he sustained since he started teaching, it all resulted in a clotted blood vessel in his brain and that a jolt to his head could either turn him into a vegetable, paralyze him, or kill him.
In spite of his impressive fighting skills, Onizuka is often roughed up by his students, and others, whenever he behaves badly. It could be speculated that deep down, Onizuka knows when he's acting immature, and allows others to keep him in line. An example of this is when he forces his students to dig for buried treasure during the Okinawa trip. Urumi Kanzaki kicks Onizuka into a hole, and later forces him to wear S&M garb and has him crawl around on all fours, with Urumi riding on his back. Another example is when Vice-Principal Uchiyamada has Onizuka over for dinner and hits him on the head with a wooden bench, after finding out that he was acting lecherous with his daughter at a karaoke bar (Onizuka was playing "Where's The Nipple?").
It is shown throughout the series that Onizuka is also very lucky, as he always manages to squeeze out of tight situations. An example of this is when he must raise 8 million yen to live up to a promise he made to the 3rd year students. He received what he believed to be a winning lottery ticket but it turned out to be false. However, he was given a raffle ticket which he kept but didn't expect for it to help his predicament, but ended up winning a car worth the 8 million yen. He gave away the car in an act of kindness, and while it seemed unlikely for him to get the car back, it was returned to him in the last minute.
GTO-Shonan 14 days
In Shonan 14 Days, Onizuka revealed on a live television programme that he nearly buried one of his students for thinking that she is dead. Although he denied the claim that he did this on purpose, the crowd did not take it and Onizuka was forced to leave Tokyo for a while until the outrage subsides. He goes to Shonan, a place where he grew up. There he met Shiratori, one of Fujitsuki-chan's friends and he learns that she is a caregiver at the White Swan Youth Home which houses kids from broken homes. He tells her that he is a teacher back in Tokyo and he probably could give her a hand in managing the kids at White Swan. Shiratori invites him to stay with them and help out, and Onizuka obliges in order to help the kids in the same manner he does at school.
Onizuka mentioned a little about his dad, who left his mom when he was younger for another woman when he shows Katsuragi his secret place, a place where he goes when he is stressed out or in trouble. Katsuragi thinks that she might have misjudged him and started to think of Onizuka on a different perspective after that.
Japanese live-action actor: Nanako Matsushima, Takimoto Miori (2012-Remake) A 22 year-old female teacher, employed at the same private school as Eikichi Onizuka, Azusa Fuyutsuki is the heroine of the series. Unlike Onizuka, she led a relatively normal life, graduating from Waseda University. Her quiet manner and moderate ideas are misleading, as she proves to be very tough on her own, which scares the overconfident, zealous Onizuka. To prepare him for the test which would determine his teaching career, she makes a mountain of jelly with eyes of Maguro tuna fish as fruits and imposes an impossibly tough schedule that would have killed anyone or driven them mad. Her field of expertise is Kokugo or Japanese language (English, in the live-action). She falls in love with Onizuka, but as both are quite reluctant to admit their affections and show them in the open, they claim they are "just friends". This friendship is not something major, except under the eyes of the cunning Suguru Teshigawara, who finds it most aggravating that a woman with her qualifications would fall in love with one with such a crude background as Onizuka. She has difficulty with the female students in her class, due to all the boys having crushes on her, but brings them around fairly quickly, after Onizuka's advice. She has a younger sister named Makoto Fuyutsuki.
Japanese live-action actor: Yumi Shirakawa, Kuroki Hitomi (2012-Remake) Ryoko Sakurai is the director of the Holy Forest Academy. She is a caring woman who believes that Eikichi Onizuka and his "methods" will work positively for the school, contrary to the beliefs of the faculty. The only time in the series that she did not approve of his behavior is when Onizuka endangered her grandson, Mayu Wakui, but she later admits this is due to his manipulative nature. She is also Daimon Misuzu's former teacher.
In the 1998 live-action series, she is named instead, and acts as the temporary principal of Holy Forest Academy while also being the chairwoman of the board, believing that Uchiyamada and Nakamaru are not yet proper "educators of educators". In the 1999 drama special, Onizuka is dispatched by chairwoman Sakurai to help her identical twin sister, , the chairwoman of a girls' school. In the 2026 live-action series, she is deceased, and Onizuka finds himself imparting the advice she once imparted on him to his students, most notably, her grandson, Soma Sato.
Japanese live-action actor: Akira Nakao, Tayama Ryosei (2012-Remake)
The vice-principal at the Holy Forest Academy, and the Mr. Wilson to Eikichi Onizuka's Dennis the Menace, Hiroshi Uchiyamada is commonly seen throwing fits over two things: Onizuka the "parasite", and his beloved and frequently-totaled Toyota Cresta.
According to a self-explained biography in the manga, Uchiyamada was born and educated in a small rural town. He was discovered as a prodigy and recommended to become a teacher at the Tokyo College of Education, where he first met his wife-to-be, Ryōko. 29 years of hard work eventually earned him his current house and position at the Holy Forest Academy. His daughter is Yoshiko Uchiyamada.
Uchiyamada holds very conservative ideals on how peoples' backgrounds determine their future performance. Despite his attempts to thwart Onizuka's plans, Uchiyamada is not so much a classic villain than merely dogmatically serious about the job of teaching (at least in his mind). He is a not-quite-extreme example of the punishment an ordinary, older middle-aged, Japanese man takes from his home and workplace. He is forced to work with a young man like Onizuka, who easily breaks the rules and does things that don't make sense to him. His superior, Headmaster Ryoko Sakurai, seems to think it is fun to have a presence like Onizuka. At home, his wife, daughter, and dog openly disdain him in his often deluded imaginings, and feels that they're only satisfied with the luxuries that his work earns.
Uchiyamada eventually accepts Onizuka's views of teaching, when the latter yells at and punches Uchiyamada, when he interferes with Onizuka, trying to save Urumi Kanzaki, on the verge of death, for the sake of his job. As Onizuka takes Urumi to an ambulance, Uchiyamada contemplates on his 29 years as a teacher and realizes that he had stopped caring for his students and more for his job, and he even decides to save Onizuka from being fired. With Onizuka's help, he also reconciles with his family, though he remains viciously defensive, when Onizuka tries to make a move on his daughter.
A running gag in the manga has Onizuka constantly destroying Uchiyamada's Cresta, mostly as a side effect of rescuing students, such as falling from the top of the school building and landing on the car. Another running gag involves Uchiyamada frequently getting injured, or assaulted by accident, from an oblivious Onizuka.
Japanese live-action actor: Kunihiko Ida, Yano Masato (2012-Remake)
Suguru Teshigawara is a ruthless, perfectionist mathematics teacher and a graduate cum laude of Tokyo University. He grew up trying to follow in the footsteps of his successful, older brother and father, the latter of whom is a high-ranking Parliament minister. He dresses very neatly and even wears a white velvet glove - his symbol of perfection.
Teshigawara is obsessed with Azusa Fuyutsuki and her dedication and relatively clean, prestigious background - far past the point of stalking. The walls of his apartment, which overlooks Azusa's, is completely covered with photos of her, and keeps tabs on her every move in her apartment, with extensive surveillance equipment. He even has a large pillow with a full-body shot of Azusa imprinted onto it. Suguru ends up having to drape white cloth all over the walls to conceal his fetish, when he tries to invite her over to his apartment.