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I must say I enjoyed just about every minute of this quirky but lesson-teaching series. This anime is hilarious at some points and downright serious at others, but in either case, the effect is poignant.

The anime revolves around Eikichi Onizuka (22 years old, single - you'll get why I have to add that if you watch the anime), former leader of the formidable Shonan bike gang, who is aspiring to be a teacher. Despite his incredible street cred in leading a gang, he is surprisingly the most gullible character in the series. He consistently falls for his students' pranks, which involve some ... means to try and get him fired, but in the end he always manages to avoid that outcome and WITHOUT ever blaming any of the students who tried to set him up. I find that the writers had a great imagination in executing each arc this way and each turn of events always had some amount of surprise factor. In any case, this anime will keep you on your toes. Story: 10

The A/V was decent, I would go so far to say 'good' for something released in the early 2000s. As another reviewer pointed out, Onizuka often makes this weird facial expression but as they mentioned, you get used to it after a view episodes. Music was not bad and fitting to this style of anime. A/V: 7

Character development is really the area in which this anime shines. The character of Onizuka himself doesn't change noticeably throughout the series. Rather, the way in which he changes the character of all his students and, to some extent, other teachers such as his touted love interest Tsukasa Fuyutsuki is what I admire about this series. Character: 10

This anime does a great job making you hate the students who bully other students and otherwise try to get Onizuka fired. And then you realize later that they have legit reasons for what they're doing and aren't just heartless pricks. This emotion is repeated over and over again and never gets old. I'm giving enjoyment a 9 only because the whole Onizuka x Fuyutsuki thing didn't really go anywhere and I was hoping there would be at least one episode of serious intimacy between the two of them (it reaches the tipping point at times but never breaks through). Enjoyment: 9

In sum, it's a great anime, and I highly recommend it if you find yourself with 15 hours of nothing to do. Overall: 9

Hands down my favorite anime. I've rewatched it twice and if it were possible to erase my memories of what happens in this anime, I would likely rewatch it many more times. Now, without further ado...

[Story: 10]
The story revolves around a man named Toua Tokuchi, whose background is effectively unknown. All we know is that he excels in a form of gambling through baseball called "One Outs." This seems to be a theme in madhouse animes, such as Kaiji and Akagi, where the character's past remains a mystery and unknown throughout the story. Anyways, Toua is finally defeated in One ... Outs by a man nicknamed the "unlucky prodigy batter" Hiromichi Kojima, and due to the stakes of the gamble, Toua leaves the gambling world to lend his prowess to the weakest team in the Japanese Pacific League: the Saitama Lycaons. I won't post any spoilers, but basically the story from here on out is Toua's "conquests" of one team after another, using his sharp wit and gambling instincts to overcome star players, intelligent strategists, and even cheating on the opposing team's part to emerge victorious all while making a pretty penny off his special "One Outs" contract. A great addition is the current tally of Toua's salary due to the contract at the end of every few episodes and by near the end of the series, that number is scary huge.

[Art: 9]
Not outstanding but gets the job done. The way every character is drawn beautifully reflects their personality (i.e. Toua looks almost sinister at times) and as such really enhances the cinematic effect of the anime. It is also fairly realistic, unlike the weird style used in Kaiji and Akagi (although I found that style appropriate for those animes). Since, the story and character are so great, however, I'm not giving art much weight toward the final rating.

[Sound: 8]
OP and ED are decent (nothing special) and sound effects are accurate and well-executed. BGM is fairly limited but it does a good job setting the right mood. Like art, it's pretty overshadowed by the story and as such won't factor much into the final rating.

[Character: 10]
There are several "round" characters in the anime (characters that develop in terms of character and maturity), though surpirsingly one of them is not the protagonist (Toua Tokuchi). I'm referring to the Lycaons team as a whole. Throughout the course of the anime, they change for the better. But Toua, the protagonist, does not. So then, why do I still award a 10 for character? The answer is that Toua's character still works beautifully. He remains the cool, calculating, canniving SOB from begininning to end and while this personality doesn't change within him, it changes his teammates for the better. Through watching him win games with his cunning, you will see the Lycaons as a whole evolve from a downtrodden team that's last in the pennant race to one that is much more positive and has a better outlook on things by the end of the series. So what's amazing is not Toua's ability to change and become a better man himself, but rather his undeniable ability to lead and change every man on his team.

[Enjoyment: 10]
After everything I've said before, the 10 I awarded in enjoyment should be self-explanatory. If you don't care for baseball, or even dislike baseball, but have an appreciation of strategy and psychology among other things, I think this anime will still blow your socks off. This anime is easily addicting enough to make you want to watch the whole thing in one eight hour sitting.

[Overall: 10]
An outstanding anime and my favorite overall. Death Note, Code Geass and a number of other greats don't even come close to this in my book, although I enjoyed them very much.

Okay, no idea where to even begin with this mess... Let's just say the writers have an overactive imagination. *WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*

Story: So we got Aoba Tadamichi "Dan Doh", some kid who starts off thinking golf is nothing because the ball you hit is stationary. The principal of his school shows him otherwise by mimicking a golf shot with... a baseball bat and ball... Umm can I get a physics check here? Anyway, suddenly Aoba thinks golf is the bees' knees and wants to become the best. Does he do it? Oh yeah! This grade schooler puts Tiger Woods to shame. After two ... weeks of practice he enters his first tournament and birdies the first hole with a bunker chip-in and eagles the second with a wayward approach shot that's saved by the wind. In short, the biggest piece of bull crap I've ever seen and an insult to the game of golf and all the people who work hard just to get par. The saving grace of this hell-hole is the story arc where Dan-Doh caddies for a tour pro, Akano, and helps him win the Sapporo Open. Even then, the pro has a crazy number of hole-outs in approach shots for eagles. (NOTE: Tiger Woods did this ONCE in his ENTIRE 2009 season.) The cream of the crop though, is Dan Doh getting away with hitting Driver in places other than the tee, something any pro wouldnt think twice about doing. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. If you're into golf, you'll likely be utterly disgusted by this crap. If not, don't be lured into thinking golf is an easy game (which this anime apparently depicts without fail). IT'S NOT!

Anyway, thanks to the Akano arc, this piece of crap gets a 4 in story, and that's being generous.

Art/Animation: Two words ****ing terrible. Yes, you can make out when someone is talking or swinging a club, but it's all about the latter in this anime. Pretty much all the swings look like they are raised to their apex in 5 discontinuous stages. Then the character can wait for as much as 5 seconds before swinging through. It's a mess, and if you copy it, you'll be lucky to hook the ball every time. Ball flight is also entirely bullcrapped. At one angle, the ball looks like it's been hit with good loft and then suddenly it looks like it's hovering one ft above the fairway as it approaches the green. Clearly, their art budget for this pathetic excuse of an anime was nil. Since other things can be made out sort of okay, I'll be generous and hand out a 3.

Sound: Opening theme is cheesy, bgm is cheesy, it's all cheesy, nothing special here and gets a 4.

Character: I have to take marks off here big time because they make Dan Doh a golf-tensai right off the bat, which pisses me off royally. Besides that, everyone has a constant personality and doesn't really "change." The only really memorable one is Akano, who actually does undergo some transformation and thus I award it a 4 in this area.

Enjoyment: As someone who knows what it's like to earn every birdie and every par with months of training, this anime pissed me off to beyond the depths of hell. Making the main character a sudden prodigy sensation who can best Tiger Woods with some of his shots and having every other shot be a hole out or pin hit was just a pathetic decision on the part of the writers. The only reason Dan Doh doesn't get a one in this category is, again, the Akano arc, so I give it a 2 for enjoyment.

Overall: 3/10; a terrible anime and a disgrace to a great game.