Prison School

First, I’m going to have to say what Prison School is about. Because I’m honestly still trying to wrap my head around the concept and the hundreds of planning paper I bought at Office Depot isn’t helping. In some weird universe where parental absence is even more out-of-place than normal by anime standards, there is a private girls’ academy called Hachimitsu (not gonna dignify that name with a response) that has recently started to admit boys for no particular reason like some gender-reversed version of Zoey 101. However, Hachimitsu is an academy that’s far from being suitable for the Nick-audience viewing.

It’s a harsh place where ... the most minor of infractions will cause you to get treated like a literal prisoner complete with wearing the stereotypical white and black outfits or face expulsion, which is something the five boys who transferred to the academy learn the hard way after making the stupid mistake of trying to peek into the girls’ locker room. Although why they’d want to is beyond me, considering every single girl in this show is less sexually appealing than Bayonetta in clown make-up. In fact, come to think of it, what exactly happens to these boys after they get expelled, considering they don’t exactly seem to be learning anything as is? Well, it turns out they want to stay so they can see a girls’ wet T-shirt contest that’s supposed to occur sometime in the future. Something I find very hard to believe actually exists in this academy - which is quite a feat considering everything else that goes past the headmaster’s eyes.

Prison School is an incredibly difficult show to summarize because it seems like it was based on somebody’s Madlibs and the guy who filled it out was off his meds that day. I get that it’s supposed to be combining prison exploitation films with the standard “anime harem/school” tropes, but some things just don’t combine, like the Hercules legend and Michael Bolton. Every single element of the series is so contradictory to another element that I have a hard time trying to find out what I’m supposed to be caring about and more importantly, what I’m supposed to laugh at. So the vice-president punishing the boys for being perverted shows ample amounts of cleavage in school? These girls hate the male form and yet they’re open with showing their vaginas to them and the audience at every opportunity? There’s a guy who really loves ants to the point that he’d die for them? There is a gun in my drawer with a special mechanism that only fires the trigger if I’m pointing it up my nose?

Oh sorry. My head was getting overwhelmed and I was thinking for a fast way to clear some thoughts. This whole show plays out like a South Park episode that was stretched to twelve times the length and stripped of all the life, memorable characters, great movie parodies, and subversive topical humor that still played by the rules even when it showcased a magician entertaining kids by sawing his penis off and hiding it behind a kid’s ear, causing it to fall into the same lifeless monkey cheese the shows it tries to parody fall into. Get past the presentation and all Prison School is is another goddamn story about the opposite sex trying to fit into a same-sex school and discovering what qualifies as romance in this medium whilst being about character types rather than characters. And unless you’re one of those people who really like over-the-top art styles, you’ll get tired of the presentation real fast.

The humor relies entirely on overreacting, awkward situations that the characters narrate to the point that the joke overstays its welcome (which is any length of time above zero seconds), or just being nonsensical for the sake of being nonsensical. And unusually for a Tsutomu Mizushima anime - and especially compared to JC Staff’s other perverted comedy that aired in the same season - the comedic timing is completely awful, so forget laughing. I know Funimation has never been above being a little liberal with translations, but poking the bear aside, I find it very hard to believe that video games even exist in this universe. And once that thought entered my mind, the shock chuckle I got from seeing that became like the shock chuckle of seeing a piece of wood stuck down someone’s sphincter: incapable of provoking an emotion from me other than confusion.

As far as I’m concerned, this show isn’t the least bit as edgy or gritty as it thinks it is. It’s more like a desperate dad trying to make his baby smile by stretching his face out and go “abloogeewoogeewoo”. And when that’s not working, he tells the kid about all the fucked-up things he saw in the world like a twelve-year old who doesn’t know any better. Who’s the baby at that point, huh old man?

There’s this stupid conversation between the male students and their principal in which he’ll allow them to stay a little longer if they can tell him whether or not boobs or asses are better and why that is. The punchline is supposed to be that being perverted gets you rewarded, which I think has only been used in at least ten different gross-out comedies, as well as every Kevin Smith film ever. Most of all, I don’t even care about the semantics regarding which is better. It’s a dumb conversation to have in real life and it’s dumb in fiction.

Another memorable attempt at the show’s desperation was when the closest thing to a male lead tried to sneak out of the school in order to show up for a date. Let’s be generous for now and say we give two shits for if he actually shows up or not, but the attempts at hiding his break-out are just pathetic because it’s very obvious he won’t get caught until the episode ends at the very least, and the punchline is always that he avoids getting caught due to last-minute circumstance that’s too weird to be funny. I’ll admit to smiling a bit at the defecation radio because that actually seemed possible in reality, but that’s it.

But I think the biggest thing that got to me was the finale. First off, it was incredibly obvious who was going to win in the end and the plan to achieve said end was pretty damn simplistic in of itself with virtually no twists to the formula or any attempt to make the characters less boring resulting from it. And yet the show drags the plan out for three episodes just so it can cram in a hundred more overlong “oh shit, I saw a woman’s privates” joke whenever it spots an opportunity to do so whilst tying up loose ends that quite frankly missed the mark for payoff ages ago. Yeah, South Park itself has a tendency to overreach, but not to this extent.

Second, I won’t spoil the final result, but I felt nothing for anybody after everything was wrapped up, and not just because of the rampant yet confusing sexism. Because at the end of the day, nothing’s changed aside from certain circumstances. The characters have achieved nothing, learned nothing, will never be remembered for anything, and have certainly not learned how to be funny to anyone older than twelve. All the suffering they went through? What exactly was the point of it all? Please tell me. I’m dying to know.

I’ve heard some people who acknowledge this show’s problems by saying it gets by on the tension. As we’ve covered before regarding Detroit Metal City, I find this impossible to feel when the show has an over-the-top style that is ALWAYS on. It NEVER takes a break to have the characters actually act human or feel like they’re in real danger. Imagine if the intrigue in Gurren Lagann was dealt with using the same “who the hell do you think I am/raw raw fight the powah” atmosphere as mostly everything else in that show. We’d think Imaishi wasn’t taking the audience seriously, or that Baz Luhrmann somehow broke into the industry. When they say style can be substance, they don’t mean keep the style on 24/7. Because even the most powerful religious symbolism gets old if you just hammer in the same verse over and over.

No likable characters, no funny jokes, not a lick of sense regarding anything that happens, and whatever tension that’s supposed to exist throughout the series is undermined by the fact that I’m watching a bunch of Daily Lives of Highschool Boys rejects constantly trying to perform bad stand-up comedy. Final grade? Utterly forgettable.

This series is utterly appalling. The mediocre art, accompanied by tasteless, immature humor and the tendency to over-appeal to every fetish out there, make Prison School one of the worst anime I have ever seen. The characters are not even remotely likable. The sound design is decent, but the archetypes of plot progression failed to inspire me or any of my friends in any meaningful manner.

Beside the poor design and application, Prison school attempts to approach a classic anime trope and blows it way out of proportion. The hyperbolic setup for this series destroyed any semblance of hope I had in this anime.

WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT!!! Disgusting show (coming from an ecchi fan). This show is the only show I have ever seen that I literally cringe whenever someone brings it up. The story was pathetic. It is literally about boy slaves who have Stockholm syndrome. The art was okay. The sound sucked. The characters were the worst I have ever seen. I wanted to whoop every character in that show. I had zero percent enjoyment in this disgraceful show. There was way too many pissing scenes. Worst show I have ever scene in my life. Anybody that likes this needs to take a breath and ... go outside please.

Normally I wouldn't even consider writing a review, after all english isn't my native language and I can't be sure if I'm able to convey my opinions on a linguistical level, but after "trying" to watch this anime (at least I gave it a considerate amount of episodes to win me over) I never felt so disgusted by an anime before.

Let's start with the good points:
- Music and sound ok
- Art really good
- Male characters are adorable idiots

Well and that's about it! Let the rant begin:

Story: Sadistic (it's not even the right word for it, because calling them sadists is an insult to sadists!) ... monsters, without any redeemable features, imprison, severly injure and torture five typical high school boys. That might sound a bit harsh, but in my opinion that's exactly what's happening there.

I didn't enjoy all the violence (usually I like that in anime).
I didn't enjoy the ecchi (usually I like that in anime - come on who doesn't like boobies? Yupp even girls!)!
I didn't enjoy the (so called) humor (usually I like that in anime)!

I seriously thought Prison School might be right up my alley. After all it should tick all my boxes, but I didn't laugh once or thought: "well that's hot". The only feelings I felt were disgust and pitty.

I don't like to give very low ratings, because even if the anime isn't very good, at least I might like tiny parts of it. Well not with Prison School.
I believe my lowest ranked anime was until today Amnesia or Diabolik Lovers, doesn't matter which one, both are absolute trainwrecks. I really wouldn't have thought it could get worse, but I couldn't have been any more wrong.

Please stay away from this anime if you are a at least half decent person!

WARNING: extreme cringe worthy anime.

Funny at times, but you almost have to dumb yourself down just to continue laughing.

Story: 1/10
The plot is, well... there is not really a plot.

Art: 4/10
I do not understand why a company would invest in this animation if the plot was so poorly written.

... Sound: 1/10
Unmemorable

Character: 1/10
They are literally all the same character. Perverted high school students. Nothing wrong with comedy and hentai, but this is definitely is not the way to do it.

Enjoyment: 3/10
Had trouble making it to the second episode, a literal "Meh"

Overall: 3/10
Perhaps the anime excels further as the episodes continue, but I think that is just wishful thinking. Don't waste your time unless you are between the ages of 13-15.

-[context]-
Watching ecchi anime is one of my more confusing guilty pleasures. Of all things, why would I want to watch something that rides the line between anime and hentai, but never crosses it? Despite my confusion, I press on and continue to watch every low-brow same-ol' piece of anime trash that comes out. After knowing of its presence for over a year, I decided to get Prison School off of my PTW list, and to my surprise, I actually didn't like it. Here's why:

-[story & stuff]-
5 degenerate boys are caught peeping on their female classmates, and are summarily sent to the (Michael Rosen voice) SCHOOL ... PRISON. They want to escape, and so they try to. That's pretty much the gist of it.

The writing is pretty inconsistent. On one hand, the prison dynamics are well-presented. I can't go into much detail since it would spoil some plot points, but I do feel as if characters develop semi-realistically. On the other hand, this show relies on anime logic to progress the story. Obviously, Prison School isn't Death Note, but as a show presenting itself as a prison-break drama, I do expect some semblance of congruity to be upheld.

-[presentation]-
Starting with the least interesting part, the OP was a metal-ish, rise-up, 1-minute-30-second piece of mediocrity. There really isn't a lot to say about it. It seems pretty obvious that whoever made it wasn't trying that hard with the lyrics. I didn't even bother to watch the ED, so go read someone else's review for a hot-take on Prison School's ED.

The visuals of the show were, like the story, very inconsistent. The artstyle was gross and gritty- making it come off as /super serious/. The artstyle, while ugly as hell, did resemble old-school hentai. This serves to justify, or at least make sense of, the raunchiness seen in every episode. To be sure, I don't think that Prison School have been presented in a modern artstyle, as the show's comedy and fanservice wouldn't come off well in the pastellic, eye-catching visuals of today. Take that how you will.

The voice acting was okay, I guess. It's hard to point out the inflectional flaws of an actor whose language I don't even understand. I can say, though, that the delivery was not noticeably terrible. Again, Take that how you will.

But, was the ecchi at least good? Yeah, the ecchi was fine. The whole anime is shot provocatively, leaving few scenes without some female part demanding the viewer's attention. Unfortunately, I noticed no desirable changes in my pants. Mayhaps I've become desensitized to the anime tiddy; an outcome that would be truly regrettable.

-[character]-
The characters were rather uninteresting, in my opinion. The character development is pretty done-to-death, but presenting a prison-drama with a group of characters who get along perfectly would be pretty lame, so I digress. Each of the characters' designs and personalities are unique and memorable. This is obviously a good thing, but since the characters grow in any meaningful way, appearances are all these boys can boast about.

-[overall]-
Prison School was kind of a letdown. When I heard the tits-vs-ass rant from my friend, I figured that I'd be in for much more than an unabashedly perverted, but otherwise unremarkable piece of anime trash. 4/10. Not good.

Alright so prison school......
"Repulsive" that word is the summation of my review. This anime does have a story which can be accepted if we ignore the initial plotholes but is too messed up if you ask me. This is my first review and I hate to say it that this anime was so disgusting that I had to write this to warn the one reading this.

The treatment of the boys was so inhuman that if anyone finds enjoyment in watching them getting beaten like that then they are the scum of our planet. All the main characters are messed up in some way or the ... other, this is the first time I am not favouring any of the characters in an anime. I got no enjoyment watching this and only watched cuz I was wishing for some happy ending...what i get is the revenge of the boys being succefull....which even is kinda sad. I don't recommend this and strongly tell the people, who think it would be fun to try it out since I have written such a review, to heed my warning. THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME AND EMOTIONS. Go watch some other anime with milder violence and more romance if that's what you seek. If you so prefer such a scenario of boys enrolling in all-girls school, go watch Maken-ki or some other like that which is atleast kinda sweet compared to this rotten anime.

Do you enjoy taking a shit in a dirty public bathroom where there's a 50% chance of catching heptitis A through Z? Then this is the anime for you. A day dream of that weird band kid you avoided in high school, Prison School is a unique series that you're afraid might shoot up the school. For a story this anime is the love child of the worst prison break movie and hentai, so don't be expecting a Shakespeare play. Many people recommend this series due to the comedy, but the humor is like Bill Cosby on a date, funny but rapey. Now that ... being said it is disgusting and horny and a genuinely enjoyable watch for the whole family!











Also great tit shots!

Artistic direction and music were very good and definitely well executed.
For me the subject matter ruined the experience.

I can deal with the cliche of pervy guys checking out girls, but there's a huge degree of casual objectification going on in the anime. Far too many fan-service moments that made the experience unpleasant.

Not a lot of character development from the episodes I've seen either, yes there is a strong friendship but their initial crime is inherently wrong and none of them learn from the experience.

Shame, as the art direction and music could of made this a solid piece if only the story was character focussed ... rather than showing down-blouse or in between the crotch camera shots.

A friend recommended me this shit. He was saying that its a fantastic anime, but then i discovered that it was all a lie. 288 minutes of pain and torture, I would say that if you dont like someone you can recommend this anime to him/her and s/he will not face you anymore. This is garbage, it’s like when you are sitting and trying to poop for 5 minutes but the shit doesn’t came off your fucking ass. Disgusting. Hopefully they decided to not make a second two.
This is just pathetic.
In 288 minutes you can watch a lot of better Hentai/porn with a ... better story. Even a “HEY BRO IM STUCK IN THE LAUNDRY MACHINE CAN YOU HELP ME?” Has a good plot twist, or just “I CUM INSIDE MY SISTER”.
Btw it was disappointing and disgusting. AP I hate you.

I was really looking forward to enjoying a good laugh with an anime, while waiting for new Olympia Kyklos episodes and still mourning the end of Asobi Asobase and Kobayashi-san...

While this show does a good job of telling a story and manages to be quite gripping at times doing so, its entertainment value depends completely on you really REALLY enjoying toilet humor, lots and LOTS of it.

If watching a guy bleeding out of the ass after being impaled by a stick is the kind of thing that tickles you, then this show is perfect for you. Be prepared however to have the limits of ... your enjoyment thoroughly tested by a barrage of crotch-peeping shots, followed by buckets of crotch-sniffing and boatloads of crotch-whipping. All very generously seasoned with plenty of scat and watersports.

I'm far from a prude, I like myself a good dose of ecchi and am not entirely mature enough to not snicker at a well delivered fart joke. But whatever titillation you may get from a panty-shot, expect it to be completely drowned out half-way through an episode of uninterrupted sweaty cleavages and incessant upskirts.

In a way this show becomes the antithesis of ecchi, by overloading a viewer with as much of it as it's possible to cram in 20 minutes that it ultimately desensitizes you.

After a few episodes i found myself just following it for the story, not really because there's such a great plot to speak of, but just because I was emotionally invested in it, having undergone what I can only call torture, chasing the carrot of a laugh waist-deep through a bog of garbage.

No, this show isn't funny and I'm sick of hearing that it is. The comedy was written by toddlers for toddlers. I mean, come on, one of the funny jokes is that a guy shits himself and that's it. That's the joke. The show is basically just "We said it was supposed to be funny so you have to laugh". The characters are all unlikeable, the setting is interesting but executed poorly and all in all, the end feels completely unsatisfying. I seriously doubt that you will laugh if you watch this show, except for maybe out of pity. The only reason I bumped the ... score is because the voice acting is solid and the art style is also quite decent. Aside from that, I cannot recommend this to anyone that has even a shred of humour, because you will be just as bored as I was. If you want a show like this that is executed properly and is actually funny, watch Grand Blue. Its a better use of your time.