Ask John: Will The GTO OVA Ever Reach America?

Question:
I didn’t know that GTO had an OVA!? What’s the possibility of getting it over here? Couldn’t it ride off the success of the GTO series?

Answer:
Technically speaking, there is no GTO OVA. The official Japanese GTO anime homepage confirms that the anime consists of only a 43 episode television series. However, five years before GTO was animated there was a five episode Shonan Junai Gumi OVA series. That earlier anime dealt with Eikichi Onizuka’s life when he was a teenage biker and juvenile delinquent. This 1994 OVA series is relatively obscure and was clearly never as successful as its sequel, GTO.

Despite the fact that the GTO anime series has been reasonably successful in America, I don’t anticipate ever seeing the earlier Shonan Junai Gumi anime series officially released in America for a number of reasons. The GTO anime was fairly well received in America, but it never seemed like a blockbuster success, and it’s availability in America over the past few years has been spotty since TOKYOPOP practically ended its video distribution. The Shonan Junai Gumi anime is an older show, and looks it. It doesn’t have the modern polish that contemporary American anime consumers expect from anime, and it doesn’t have word of mouth trendiness that’s vital to the domestic success of any anime released in America these days. Finally, “bosozoku” anime (anime about Japanese biker gangs and delinquents) has never been successful in America. Anime about Japanese bikers and/or delinquents released in America including Shonan Bakusozoku, Chameleon (released in America as “Bite Me! Chameleon”), and Salaryman Kintaro have never been successful.

I can’t speak for any other American anime licensor, but as someone involved with licensing for AN Entertainment I can say that I’m always eager to see new anime titles reach America, but I don’t think that the Shonan Junai Gumi OVA series has enough American commercial potential to make it a wise investment for a domestic licensor. The show may be a prequel to GTO, but it has too many other characteristics likely to make it a title that a majority of American consumers will refuse to purchase. It’s old; it’s obscure; it’s squarely in an unpopular genre; and even riding the coattails of GTO is an unlikely probability because the GTO series is not currently a hot property in America and doesn’t seem likely to ever become a title popular enough to attract consumers to related or similar anime.