Prison School
a review by EpicSponge101
a review by EpicSponge101
This review will contain no spoilers unless further warned.
Prison School was a series that was bound to have mixed reception from it’s very conception— I mean, it’s basically about a comedic sexually-toned highschool slave camp— but the criticism and modern perception runs a little bit deeper than that. To non-fans, Prison School is an overly sexual clusterfuck of cringeworthy content; to fans, the series past the anime remains in an ambiguous light. Though they obviously find the anime gut-bustingly hilarious, many supporters of the series remark on it in a negative manner. This core issue, if you’re unaware, stems from the last 100 or so chapters of the manga— and the bizarre direction the ending takes. I’m not here to defend or attack the series, but I’d like to chronicle my thoughts and opinions. So without further ado, let’s get into the meat and bones.
For those of you unfamiliar with the premise, it basically revolves around 5 boys— Kiyoshi, Joe, Gakuto, Shingo, and Andre— as they embark upon increasingly degenerative adventures in an all-girls highschool. So, yes, the archetypal Ecchi setting; however, this time with a twist theme— prison. Our lads immediately get comically caught attempting to peep on girls while changing, and are subsequently locked up inside an in-school prison system. Naturally, the female guards are abusive; I have to say, this is a perfect set-up for comedic potential. Limiting our characters' actions gives birth to increasingly creative yet awkward scenes, but I proceed myself. Either way, this is the basic premise, but the manga goes quite past this narrow scope. We get to see each of our characters leave prison and individually develop in intriguing ways, though the prison is still there, I can’t get into its purpose without spoilers. So for now, I’ll leave it at that.
First and foremost, Prison School is very much a comedy. I’ve heard some say it relies on shock and gross-out humor, and though it can be there, I believe that’s a great disservice to the humor in play for most of the series. I get it, though, for the style can certainly be jarring at times. It takes sexuality and pumps it up to eleven, constantly formulating clever and ever-expanding gag strings that permeate through the entirety of the chapter— and most of the time beyond that. It establishes things about characters like Joe loving his ants and Andre being a masochist early on, and continues to run with that, building again and again upon the original joke until the characters have developed past their original states. Well, for the most part. Characters like Shingo honestly stay underdeveloped throughout the series, which is a glaring flaw, but he has his moments and doesn’t feel entirely useless to the cast. Lots of the more stand-alone jokes rely on getting our protagonists into the most inexplicably awkward situations conceivable, however. They just continuously get more absurd, confounding onto the bizarre tone of the series— and there’s a ton of examples of this type of humor within the show. Like Hana needing Kiyoshi to piss in front of her to satisfy her twisted, naive, and misguided revenge; even Gakuto heroically shitting his pants in the middle of class to get an audio file for his dear comrade Kiyoshi.
This is where the issues begin to arise, however— how absurd is too absurd? Entering the Sports Festival Arc, we travel into the realm of the completely ludicrous, and this was a turn off for many. It somewhat broke the internal, grounded logic of the series. Andre becomes a giant dog thing? Why not? Kiyoshi fucking dies from a boner? Why not? The principle crashes a fucking helicopter into the school building? Why the hell not? Some of these things are relatively clever and hit, but others miss— and when they miss, they miss hard. That’s key issue number one, anyways, for there’s another feature that makes many hate the latter half of the manga: bloat. Bloat is a word I see constantly thrown around in reference to the Sports Festival and Calvary Battle Arc, as many feel like jokes somewhat stagnated and didn’t evolve fast enough for the pacing. While I don’t necessarily agree, there is certainly credence to the idea. Put together, it lasts 75 whole chapters; you get a similar feeling to Dressrosa fatigue. It’s set in this one, bland location and general concept. I believe, no matter how much they evolved the jokes within the arc, being confined to that one space and premise would have pissed most off anyways. It does not help that absurdism began to truly bloom here.
I likely came off as very critical in that last paragraph, but honestly— I love even the more controversial parts of the story. The clever writing remains; I think the absurdism is fine for the most part. Andre’s descent into madness feels like a hyperbolization of his masochism, and it leads to genuine development for characters like Risa. I do admit that the joke dragged on for far too long, though. I feel slightly dishonest to have talked of the Sports Festival and Calvary Battle arc and have omitted the Chairman Side Story Arc, however. For this arc is perhaps the greatest single thing to have graced the pages of Prison School’s run despite it’s awkward juxtaposition to the concurrent chapters. The Chairman is a serious guy who does serious things— but he’s also an ass man. He loves ass; upon seeing a fine piece of ass, he picks her up and takes her to her destination. Unfortunately, he ends up crashing and getting amnesia, making for a mystery where he believes he’s an action hero running from an evil organization— it’s fucking brilliant. Genuinely the peak of absurd premises. His sort of action hero demeanor is in stark contrast to the very normal events that happen around him, as he ends up cheating on some man’s wife and even getting into a fight with a bear due to a misunderstanding. They keep bringing unexpected things from earlier in the arc in to play, such as his crashed car and a dog. Sadly, I can’t spoil how, but damn does this arc craft comedic structure well.
So, we’ve established that the series mostly uses absurdist and blue comedy to deliver it’s punchlines— blue meaning comedy that’s sexual in nature. However, it would be unfair to mention the key issue that would turn people off from the manga: gross-out humor. While there’s almost always an actual joke to go along with it, it stands to reason that scenes like Vice Principal Meiko pouring buckets of sweat sexually or punishing prisoners with a riding crop would turn many off. Sadly, this issue is only exacerbated by the anime, which in all regards is an incredible adaptation— which only makes the realistically-drawn cringe worthy scenes all the more painful. I never personally thought the series was hard to read for its more repulsive content, but I would be remiss to not write about it, as it is a key part of the series.
Another commonality one may find within many jokes is a sense of camaraderie or at times, lack thereof. Prison School is a very “the boys” type story, as we watch our main five indulge in ridiculous farces constantly. Of course their relationship is petty and shallow, as they get mad and envious of each other just for interacting with women. This gap that builds in their relationship is usually rectified, however, as they are forced to give up pettiness to overcome their issues. The connotation “the boys” brings along may seem cringeworthy at times, but it’s executed fantastically here. It gives them a real sense of chemistry as they sacrifice things for one another, and even betray each other. Seeing Gakuto give up things in his own, personal interest for what he believes is the best for his friend ultimately is touching and feels genuine. You can feel the real bond beneath them, even if some things drive wedges in it— which I think is rather realistic. Real life long-time friends fight over stupid bullshit all the time, after all.
Finally, there’s a sort of psychological aspect to certain arcs of the story. We get to see characters play constant mind games and outsmart each other, usually leading into some ridiculously sexualized mishap— and it’s fun. It’s entertaining to see these five, munted boys attempt to escape a prison while under constant surveillance of brutal guards. I wouldn't say this is a main appeal of the comedy, but it’s certainly there; I think people who like psychological mind games would love the comedic romps here. It’s similar to Kaguya Sama: Love Is War, except far more clever in building up to the most ridiculous outcomes possible.
One of the core themes of Prison School is, evidently from the comedy, sex. Considering the raunchy and crude nature of Prison School’s subject matter, one might assume it to lack nuance or just not attempt to do anything outside of comedy— but I’d like to beg to differ. There’s actually some interesting nuance covered under the guise under the comedy, which isn’t present enough to mean a lot for many, but I really appreciated the message the story tried to convey. It adequately explored sexual relationships between minors and how that can scar one’s development, especially with relationships such as Hana and Kiyoshi. They became so twisted up in each other that it devolved into sexual degeneracy that neither would ever return from, or that’s at least what they thought at the time. They actually develop as people, though, and learn to move on past that and try to form healthy relationships. This is one of the many ways Prison School explored sexuality and relationships; it was shockingly adequate as commentary while being comedic.
To venture down another avenue or sexuality— how about fetishes? With a quick dismissal of Hana’s piss obsession, I’d like to hone in on Risa and Andre’s dichotomy. For those of you unaware— Andre is a brutal masochist. He gets his greatest pleasure in life from being mistreated and abused by women, which is often drawn to a comically exaggerated extent. Then, there’s Vice President Meiko; she’s a boorish but hot bitch who constantly abuses Andre in prison. Naturally, Andre takes a liking to her and her whippings; through a series of psychological tribulations, she breaks Andre down into a husk that needs “punishment”. However, she disappears due to a certain story development— and this is where Risa comes in. Feeling bad for the big, dumb, and kind Andre, she gradually warms up to him. Eventually, she takes on the mantle of trying to become his “Queen”. This is a phenomenal gateway into the relationship between a sadist and a masochist, as we begin to sympathize with her attempts to capture the magic the Vice President once had. Andre continuously puts her off for his one true Queen, for he can feel her reluctance and care for him; but eventually, due to her neglect of him, she finally clicks for him. We get to see the effort Risa put in to be his Queen, and how specifically she did it. Of course, most sadist-masochist relationships in real life are more grounded, but the core concepts remain. We really get to see Risa bloom for someone she cares about, and I think that’s underappreciated.
Expanding the field of fetishes and sexuality, we see Hana get obsessed with seeing male piss due to her own morbid curiosity. This is presented in a comedic light, of course— but it’s a genuine exploration of her own psychology as she develops a piss fetish. However, when she gets to the point where she’ll finally see it, something beautiful happens. She’s hit with a truck of instant regret, coming to the epiphany that her morbid curiosity was just that— a curiosity. She was so hellbent in her own, perfect fantasy that she didn’t realize the realistic repercussions of such a thing actually happening. This happens a lot in real life with fetishes such as wax play or cock and ball torture; people begin to realize a fantasy should remain within its own fictional confines. Of course, this isn’t always true, but I’m glad it was addressed here. Hana realizes that such a thing would ruin her own innocence and that she wants to form genuine, romantic connections with others. What a nice stroke for her character.
Another resounding theme of Prison School is its characters' constant selfishness and perversion. The boys especially act purely in self-interest, often for lust, and sometimes for social gain. Everyone’s willing to betray each other despite their supposed camaraderie; in the end, selfishness is their downfall.
Lastly, perhaps the most permeating relationship-based theme in Prison School involves the very foundation of a relationship. Partnership is based on one’s own maturity and willingness to love and trust their partner— a relationship built upon a lie will never last. Our boys get caught up in frivolous and self-concerned connections that make them lie for their own game, and they get punished for it. I'll get into this in my spoiler section, but the main point of the ending of the manga was to prove this point. One who isn’t mature enough to be honest with their partner isn’t mature enough to hold a real connection. We see people fail time and time again from their own selfish actions, and we see people giving into their own lust get continuously beat across the head— yet they never learn. Well, they might at the end, but I’ll save it.
I’m gonna go over each character and their arcs in this section, with both a spoiler and non-spoiler section for each. That way I can analyze their development thoroughly, while providing general and baseline thoughts for those unfamiliar with the material.
If I had to peg Gakuto as anything, I would say the primary comedic relief— or at the very least the funniest. He’s a perverted nerd who has an odd obsession with The Three Kingdoms, and at the beginning of the story he’s as self-concerned as the rest of them, but he changes. He learns there’s more important things than his own gain and becomes a martyr at certain points in the story; his development makes sense and feels genuine, even if the latter half takes it in a different direction. He’s always put into awkward situations, and seeing his nerdy reactions and speech patterns is always refreshingly funny. He’s the sort of fan favorite I hope everyone would like; he genuinely ranks among some of my favorite comedic reliefs. That’s not all, though— he has very real character issues beyond his perversion. He constantly struggles with his own selfish desires while trying to balance what’s right and his social relationships, which is cool to see. Beyond him struggling with his selfishness, he battles indecisiveness; especially in love. The manga uses this to show how being passive and indecisive in a relationship can hurt one’s partner, or conversely, potential partners.
Perhaps the strangest character in the entire manga, Hana is a somewhat crude and delusional chick who gets infatuated with seeing Kiyoshi’s piss after he accidentally sees her peeing, leading to many comedic moments and some interesting thematic development. She’s one of the better girls in the manga, and she tackles themes such as fetishes, naivety in love, jealousy, and pettiness.
Joe is unfortunately an underdeveloped character, for he had a lot of potential to bloom. His character design with the hoodie which alway stays on is rather funny for a background gag, and his love for ants was stupid and quirky enough to work. It also tied into the recurring theme of being self-absorbed, as his care for his hobby impedes his social life on many occasions. He does get some pretty interesting exploration later on sexuality— but I don’t really have much to say there, honestly. It was just cool seeing him find himself.
Chiyo has an archetypal baseline that pervades her character for many, but in my opinion, she has some interesting notions outside of this. The archetype is of course your average nice, playful, and funny basic girl who seems to like the protagonist because they have the commonality of being nice. Well, at least nice on paper— because Kiyoshi’s toxicity eventually becomes apparent, dragging down Chiyo with him. She also regularly serves as a good plot device to set up wacky and increasingly more degenerative events, as Kiyoshi does anything to try and appear perfect to her. She drives the plot and forces Kiyoshi to do things like sneaking out of the prison, and also lying— which develops the themes of Prison School. Sometimes her naivety leads to fantastic comedy as well, like when she thought PBR-Sama was her birthday gift and continued through the Sports Festival Arc under that assumption.
Mari is originally our antagonist, as she’s driven from a strict hatred of men. She believes all men are no-good perverts, and she despises her father for this— him being a big part of the reason she thinks that, as he’s not good at hiding his porn. She’s presented as serious and cold-hearted, and the deconstruction of this later creates not only good drama, but hilarious comedy. We see a gradual perspective shift in her philosophy when she’s bereaved of her prison head position and is forced to hang out with the boys. Not only is this arc of gradually less-severe sexism satisfying, but it creates good conflict with other characters. For instance, her initial hatred of men drives a wedge between Chiyo, her sister, and Kiyoshi’s relationship. It also creates awkward moments and solid banter when Mari is forced to work together with one of the boys; she’s pretty fun as a character. Another important notion for her character is her dichotomy with Kate, the antagonist that proceeds her— and their troubled past. I’ll get to that later, though. Of course, her respect and friendship with Meiko is also interesting to see; their relationship feels genuine and complex, as there are many moving parts. Despite how it may seem at times, you can really see their bond through Mari’s backstory.
Since Kate is our second antagonist in the series, it’s hard to cover her arc without spoilers— so just know it explores envy and perhaps sexuality, which I’ll cover in spoilers.
Honestly, I’ve been dreading writing about Meiko, for she’s one of the most peculiar characters in the manga— and it’s hard to even say in a good way. She’s a real mixed bag— especially in the spoiler section— so let’s dive right in. At the beginning of the show, she serves as a second-hand lackey to Mari, but serves as the general antagonistic force since she’s around the most. She’s strict and mean, having no problem beating prisoners with riding crops; perhaps most pertinently, she’s a sexy beast. Well, kinda. I personally find her the opposite of hot, and her constant sweating grosses me out, but my ultimate point is she’s incredibly sexualized. Lots of her humor derives from either beating the boys or being in a sexual position, which can get very gratuitous. However, Prison School usually carries some level of wit; it knows how to construct clever jokes off of this. They play Andre’s masochism off of Meiko’s sadism, Gakuto gets to be a punching bag, and for a while her chemistry just works. You can feel the sort of camaraderie she’s formed with the boys from spending so much time as their prison guard, and it’s pretty sweet in a way. However, throw all this out of the window, because guess what— amnesia. I can’t get into exactly what happens, but her character has a major perspective shift; I’ll get into this below.
Shingo, in a similar happenstance to Joe, is woefully underdeveloped. He contributes to the themes by being selfish and horny, but beyond that he has little notable personality. He’s a somewhat-cool, slimy backstabber who will do anything for personal pleasures. Particularly a lay. It’s hard to sympathize with him, even if what he does is understandable. It’s nice to see him make amends and attempt to change himself, but as for most of the characters in Prison School, it’s mostly for naught. His selfishness is at the core of his character, and he foolishly reverts back to it. Other than that, he gets some neat romantic development with Anzu— even if he fucks it up comically on multiple occasions.
Near the beginning of the manga, Andre is a very one-note character. However, in a similar fashion to Meiko, he has some of the most varied and controversial developments in the manga— truly pushing the reins of absurdism. Hia whole schtick is masochism; they use this for great comedy whenever it’s appropriate, and it doesn’t feel particularly explored or focused on. As the first arc ends, however, we shift the focus onto Andre far more. His character develops into something else entirely, and we begin to go into a gradual exploration of the dynamic between a masochist and a sadist. Said exploration can sometimes be disjointed and bloated, but it’s a genuine covering of a topic you won’t learn about in many other manga, so it’s interesting.
Past the first arc, and since I already covered the thematics of Risa and Andre’s relationship, past that— Andre truly dives off the deep end. His character is turned into a beast-like entity to parody his hyper masochism and need for constant masochistic stimulation. On paper, this is pretty funny— but the joke gets old. Every once and a while they revitalize it by innovating on it, but overall it stagnates. It’s one of those evolutions that happens so fast and in such a bizarre way you miss the original character as well, the easiest comparison I can draw here is Mr.Garrison from South Park. Even if the evolution made sense and had its moments, you just want your original funny-guy back.
Finally addressing the elephant in the room, the ending is by far the most controversial element of the story among those who have read it. It takes such an incredibly bizarre turn for all of the characters in the story, and it’s honestly kind of fascinating Hiramoto had the balls to pull this one off. So, without further ado, let’s get into the analysis.
Rushed. Rushed is the immediate word that comes to mind when someone brings up the flaws of the Prison School ending, for we get to see many plot-lines remain unresolved or come to a premature end. For the people who despise it for this aspect— I honestly can’t blame you. Things like Mari’s conclusion don’t even early capture what her arc had set-up, and it feels like they just slapped a band-aid for a quick fix as an afterthought. Hell, they literally did forget about the wet T-Shirt concept, and were forced to finish that plot-thread in a short point-five chapter.
Moving onto the penultimate finale, Gakuto, Shingo, Joe, Anzu, Mayumi, and MItsuko’s ending was polarizing. On one hand, it’s incredibly dumb; it’s hardly even an ending. They float off on PBR sama and are forced to come to terms with their drifting fate, missing Chiyo’s party. On its own, this is just horrible as an ending, but a funny sequence of events. However, I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt. I see this as a fucking hilarious joke, even if it was a bit cheap. Near their final moments floating away on PBR-Sama, Gakuto states that everything is a matter of perspective; instead of a castaway situation, this is a 2 years vacation. Fortunately, we get to see our B-cast one more time— and they’ve finally managed to stop PBR-Sama. So what do the boys do? They board back on the ship, continuing down the river. The implication being that they took a whole 2 years vacation, and that’s fucking hilarious. It makes sense as the boys had been obsessed with PRB-Sama for the past 100 or so chapters as well, so I’m fine with this ending, honestly. Most of them already had their romantic conclusions— Shingo being the obvious outlier— and they were usually relegated to comedy, anyways. It just feels like a massive shit post, and you can say I’m in bad taste, but I dig it lmfao.
Touching on perhaps the most controversial segment, let’s talk about Hana, Kiyoshi, and Chiyo’s ending. There’s really a lot to cover here, holy fuck. This is perhaps the most bizarre string of chapters I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and I absolutely understand why people hate it. I like some things about it, though. For instance, everything that happens feels perfectly in character. Kiyoshi was an immature teenage boy; he remained that through the entire series. His character flaws ended up biting him the ass, even if he tried to cover them up— as they did for most other characters in the series. He never grew up, changed, or developed past some instances like learning how to take an emotional hit. That idea is beautiful. Where most series have their asshole or flawed protagonist grow and change, Prison School shows us a character who never escapes his own flaws as a person, but simply reverts to them— and that’s incredibly realistic for some people out there. For many, change doesn’t ever come, and they exhibit the same mistakes for the rest of their lives. Of course, in a story this makes the conclusion unsatisfying for many; I think that’s a valid complaint. I, personally, thought it was really cool, though. The other character’s actions make sense as well, as they fall right in line with previously exhibited behavior. Hana’s pettiness and jealousy are at full display here, as she ruins Chiyo and Kiyoshi’s relationship. Ironically, with their flaws, they might be perfect matches for each other. While Chiyo was a diamond in the mud, who’s naiveness was her only flaw, she would have never worked with Kiyoshi. They didn’t even have anything in common beyond Kiyoshi being kind-hearted. Their shittiness breaks and corrupts her, however, as her perspective shifts to a more cynical one. Feeling betrayed by the only person she could trust and love— Kiyoshi— she shifts her perspective towards hating all men, mirroring Mari. It’s not perfect and could have been more fleshed out, but I really like this direction. It’s really unique and thematically poignant. Ultimately really cool stuff, even if they could have pulled the pacing and rushed it less.
So, yeah. Despite some left-off plot lines and rushed conclusions, I really liked the Prison School ending. It was unique, impactful, and thematically appropriate. I get people that hate it, but I do think modern perception is a bit hyperbolized. Feel free to message me your personal thoughts on the ending, as I’m pretty interested to hear all of the unique reactions to this.
In the end, Prison School is one of the funniest experiences I’ve ever had watching television. I consistently laughed; there was even some interesting character development and thematic nuance in the background to keep things fresh. It’s latter half has its flaws, but I’ll always remember it as a resoundingly positive experience. The raunchy, blue comedy may not be for everyone— but if this looks appealing at all to you, go for it. Signing out, message me your thoughts, and have a good day, everyone.
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