Prison School

I like how Prison school has the kind of love triangles where the third wheel seems likely to win. Kiyoshi first met Chiyo, but Hana is going to win him (right..? right?!). Risa seems likely to win Andre from Meiko. And latest, Gakuto seems to doubt if Bitch-san might be the right one, rather than Mitsuko.

It’s one of the worst conventions of harem series that the first, purest girl will win. I agree that the end result shouldn’t come with a coin toss, which typically implies preference to the first girl since she has had most panel/screen time with the MC. The way Prison school could do it (I still doubt these outcomes actually happen) is have an initial feint girl (Chiyo) to set up and “ideal” relationship the story seems to aim at. But then you add the second, “bad” girl (Hana), to whom the first girl becomes a foil to showcase her specialness. Since drama is great, the tension between MC and the bad girl makes the pairing actually much more interesting than the alternative.

That said, I don’t think the current Kiyoshi-Hana relationship is that well executed. Kiyoshi is being dense (somewhat better justified than usually) and Hana is too tsundere to spit it out — well, she actually does once ask Kiyoshi to date her instead, but it becomes “just a joke” of course.

I think I would ultimately say this manga is merely good, not great, but it has a ton of interesting new ideas and great art so it’s hard to not praise. New volumes come out at rapid pace since it’s a weekly series, so I will probably keep on reading about this twice a year until it ends.

Prison School is probably the only manga I’ve ever seen the artist draw eyeglass distortions. That thing where eyes looks smaller and the side of the head is closer to middle when seen through the frames (assuming glasses for the near-sighted).

The author does lots of distortions (see page image) which I think are really cool.

I actually shed tears after reading vol 18 of prison school (kiyoshi and hana under pillows). I’m just speechless at this masterpiece of a series.

I like this thing when the males become comically serious about porn. They talk in an assertive tone and say things like “A girl could not possibly understand.” “It’s is my duty as a man.”. Prison School has lots of this.