GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

The 1998 TV drama version of GTO recorded a high viewership rating of 35.7% in the Kanto region for its final episode, and its average viewership rating reached 28.5%.

Due to the policy of staff members including Kazuhisa Andō to make it a more serious school drama than the original work, the setting was significantly altered from the original, such as changing the location from a junior high school to a high school.

The lead actor Takashi Sorimachi and the heroine Nanako Matsushima started dating in November 1999 after their appearance together in this drama, and married in February 2001.

Yōsuke Kubozuka, Shun Oguri, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Naohito Fujiki, and Hirō Tamaki, who later became successful, appeared in this work before their breakthrough.

The school location used for filming was Jissen Women's College, and the same place was later used in the 2002 drama Gokusen and the 2007 drama Life: The Story of a Girl Fighting Against Bullying, but the buildings were demolished and no longer exist following the campus relocation in 2014.

The theme song POISON ~Things I Can't Say in This Kind of World~, sung by lead actor Takashi Sorimachi, became a hit with 500,000 copies shipped based on shipment figures, and a scene in which Onitsuka mutters "POISON... poison..." while studying in the toilet was also included in the drama.

An accident occurred at the filming site of the drama special broadcast in June 1999, in which stuntman Kōji Aiko died after failing to land properly while diving into the sea.

The 1998 film version was distributed by Toei, but unlike Odoru Daisōsa-sen THE MOVIE, which was distributed by Fuji Television the previous year, it was through Osamu Okada of Toei who acquired the distribution rights through his connections with people related to the Fuji Sankei Group.

The film version includes partial homages to the TV drama version, such as a scene in which Onitsuka drops a wallet containing a condom in the pampas grass, and a scene in which a bullied student's pants are pulled down revealing white briefs.

The special drama GTO Revival broadcast in 2024 exceeded 3.7 million plays in the free catch-up distribution within one week of broadcast, setting a record as the highest number of plays for a private broadcast single drama.