Wrote a Prison School post on my facebook but it was probably mostly wasted since I doubt anyone read it, so I'll just repost it here.
I'm sure here I'm just preaching to the choir, but here we go.
Prison School
Hiramoto Akira is known for his work "Me and the Devil Blues" (俺と悪魔のブルーズ
, a manga that explores the life of blue's musician Robert Johnson, as he tries to make it in a racially segregated society amidst an economic recession. The manga mixes reality with fiction and features haunting art and some great character writing.
Yet I'm not here to talk about that.
Instead I'm going to talk about one of the other of Hiramoto works, Prison School.
Prison School is a manga about a group of boys who get in a previously "all female high school" and get thrown into Prison for peeping. If this sounds like the most generic setting for a manga it's because it is. It is no wonder that fans of Hiramoto were disappointed that this would be be the premise of his next manga after "Me and the Devil Blues" got cancelled.
Its difficult to talk about Prison School as it needs to be experienced words alone can't describe Prison School as the art and dialogue are such an integral part of making everything about Prison school work. But hopefully Ill manage to get into words what Prison School is.
What should Prison School be:
Trash
I mean did you read the premise? This should by all means be pure trash.
What Prison School isn't:
Trash.
How good is Prison School?
So good it brought "Me and the Devil Blues" back from cancellation.
Then what is Prison School?
A work of art, a manga that is as crude as it can be while hiding excellent writing under it, rather than being crude for the sake of being crude, Prison School embraces it and uses the crudeness to tell stories of personal growth and emotional bounds all while being extremely funny at it.
The contrast between the absurd crude, yet emotionally dramatic situations and the amazingly detailed art, create for a fantastic unique series.
The series portraits females as the strong gender who are in the position of power while the boys are nothing more than mere animals motivated by their base urges. All while drawing females in the most fanservice ways possible, the author is clearly well aware of this seemingly contradiction as he often uses a specific character with who he draws fanservice in such absurd ways that it becomes disgusting to look at, as if to challenge the reader to think about such things. Though the series does not lack male fanservice either, particularly later on in the series.
The character's growth, personal interactions, and psychological aspects are developed in unexpected way, the series is never afraid of exploring taboo themes and using them for this very purpose.
The only issue is that series takes a bit to get going, the early chapters could really be described as having some moments where its crude for the sake of being crude, but there's also a lot of set up for long term arcs. It might also take a bit to understand what the series is doing.
A very usual reaction is to go from "I don't get why people like this..." to being engaged and emotionally connected on the ridiculous situations going on.
The most emblematic scene of the series, "What do you like more, tits or assess?" perfectly embodies Prison School, the most ridiculous of questions yet, for the characters, this is a life or death situation where they can't afford to give the wrong answer, and the process of getting the answer is as emotional as it is logical, all while being drawn in a very realistic and detailed fashion. Hiramoto Akira manages to transform such a rude questions in a true moment of drama and character study.
It's difficult to write a good series such as "Me and the Devil Blues", but it's even harder to turn what should trash into a legitimate work, and that's what Hiramoto Akira did with Prison School. And for that alone Prison School would deserve to be read, but more than that, Prison School is an amazing piece of work about the human nature, filled with complex relationships and characters, and that's the true reason why you should read Prison School.
Godly art said:
