Great Teacher Onizuka

This could be seen as an off-shoot of ‘reformed villain’ doing a redemption arc, but it’s kind of different.  The delinquent, punk part of the character is in the past and not something that is shown to the audience.  They are told about it and see some actions that hint heavily at what they used to do, but this character is now reformed.  Of course, they still have some old habits that appear at times.

Something that I think makes this differ from a villain’s redemption arc is that the punk tends to have not gone too far.  They are still able to function within society even with some judgement.  Fighting, theft, vandalism, and misdemeanors tend to be the bulk of what they did.  Much of it gets described as when they were minors too, so they step into the story with a clean record as an adult.  This doesn’t erase what they did from existence, but it doesn’t create a paperwork obstacle that can be overused.  It makes their attempt to be a ‘normal’ citizen easier, but not without difficulty.

The challenge ends up being their own mindset.  The reformed punk still has the urges and reactions from their old life.  For example, an attempt at intimidation from a boss could be met with threatening or physicality.  They are shown to be still learning how to NOT do the things that got them in trouble.  I think this makes the audience root for them to improve, especially if there’s a comedic aspect to their mistakes.  There has to be consequences as well even if their actions end up getting results.  Sure, the boss might leave them alone after being intimidated in return, but now the reformed punk has to figure out how to get his vacation time approved.

I guess this character tends to be more common in manga and anime too.  Not sure how gangs and delinquents are different in Japan, but Americans tend to think of these characters as drug-dealing murderers.  So, a redemption arc like this tends to be heavier and more difficult.  With anime and manga, the delinquents don’t seem to be going that far unless they’re storyline involves getting deeper into the criminal world.  For a reformed punk, it’s the opposite, which is why the previously mentioned limit has to be there.  If they go too far, even prior to the story, the audience will deem them unforgiveable and there goes the entire project.

A key point to these characters is about getting and succeeding at a second chance, so I would say a major theme is hope.  No matter how much they get rejected, they should keep trying and have at least one person who thinks they can change their ways.  A common secondary theme is to never give up and do whatever it takes to prove you’re no longer a punk. That or to prove punk habits can come in handy with certain situations, but we’re going back into comedy there.  Either way, this type of character works to make the audience believe the hero has a bad past, but can still be whatever they want since they are striving to be better.

Two characters come to mind and both are anime/manga:

1. The character at the top is Eikichi Onizuka from ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’.  He is a former motorcycle gang member who gets licensed to become a teacher and make something of himself.  That and get a girlfriend, but that plays to his immature and comedic nature.  He messes up a lot, but continues trying and finding his own way to solve problems.  There are themes of education being too focused on grades and not the individual in his story too, which is why he continues to demonstrate his punk-like habits throughout the whole thing.  Still, it is repeatedly made clear that his past didn’t turn him into a heartless villain.  Onizuka cares about all of his students and shows that there is good in his heart, which helps with his ‘redemption’.
2. The other character I thought of just now is Yusuke Urameshi from ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’.  He is a punk who sacrifices himself to save a kid and is brought back to life to become a Spirit Detective.  Like Onizuka, he retains his punk habits, but it is a much bigger scale since his situation allows him to be violent.  Yusuke is fighting demons while Onizuka has to deal with school administrators, parents, and students.  I would say Yusuke is given harsher edges, but he still works as a reformed punk character.  It’s on a grander scale because his story is about how a violent delinquent can step up to be a hero who saves the world.

So, the reformed punk can be used for different scales of story.  I feel that a sense of comedy is needed in general to soften their missteps, but you can go dramatic too if you want it to be very serious.  Either way, it’s an interesting and rather uncommon hero type from what I’ve seen.  Be curious to see more too.