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New Live-Action GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka Series Casts Meru Nukumi

Kansai TV announced on Saturday that the new live-action series based on Tohru Fujisawa's GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka manga has cast Meru Nukumi (My Hero Academia: You're Next's Anna Scervino, live-action Sexy Tanaka-san's Akari Kurahashi). Nukumi plays the heroine Mio Kashiwabara, the assistant homeroom teacher for the class of the title character.

Kashiwabara is a practical teacher who prizes efficiency. However, as she also prioritizes stopping trouble and conflict before they even occur, she keeps both students and fellow teachers at a distance and avoids expressing her emotions. Despite this, when she and Onizuka are eventually at odds, she has to question a teacher's role and her approach towards students.

Nukumi noted that when she watched the previous live-action series in reruns (she was born after the first series premiered) growing up, she mused about playing a student, but never imagined playing a teacher.

In the new series, the now 52-year-old Onizuka works as a teacher at Seishin Academy, which aims to "raise the leaders of the future." At Seishin, both students and teachers carry tablets through which the school disseminates information. Students anonymously rank teachers through the "Teacher Feedback System," where teachers constantly ranked low lose their homeroom teacher status. Teachers and students both chat using the tablet, though neither side see it as a place to air their true feelings.

Onizuka's direct teaching methods, where he puts himself on the line, are now seen as problematic, and it has led him to losing a string of teaching jobs prior to arriving at Seishin Academy. Now he must deal with the commercialization of education, being bound by rankings and oversight, and a school that seems to show no interest in others' well being and relies on social media.

Takashi Sorimachi reprises the role of protagonist Eikichi Onizuka 28 years after his first outing, while Satoru Nakajima and Kazuhiko Yukawa return as director and scriptwriter, respectively, for the new series. The series is a sequel to earlier live-action adaptations, moving the time period from the Heisei era to the modern Reiwa era.

The new series will premiere on Kansai TV, Fuji TV, and affiliated channels on July 20 at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 a.m. EDT).

Fujisawa published the original GTO manga in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1997 to 2002. Other works in the franchise include the manga sequel GTO: Shonan 14 Days, the discontinued spin-off GT-R, and the predecessor series GTO: The Early Years. Tokyopop and Vertical published various GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) manga titles, including the GTO: The Early Years prequel, in North America. The GTO: Paradise Lost manga launched in Weekly Young Magazine in April 2014. After going on hiatus in February 2023, the manga moved to Kodansha's Magazine Pocket website under the new name GTO: Paradise Lost Kai and resumed in April 2024, and ended in October 2024.

The main manga inspired the first live-action GTO series adaptation in 1998, various television specials over the years, a remake series starring Exile member Akira in 2012 with its own spinoffs, and a live-action film in 2000. GTO: The Early Years inspired a new live-action series adaptation in February 2020. GTO Revival, a new live-action television special, premiered in April 2024.

The manga also inspired a television anime adaptation that aired in Japan in 1999. Tokyopop initally licensed the anime series in 2001, releasing it on DVD singles and two boxsets. Discotek licensed the anime and released it on home video in September 2013.

Sources: Kansai TV, Comic Natalie