Prison School ep 1 [ First Impression ]

Prison School is the special kind of show that makes you deeply reconsider being an anime fan. Why am I here? What am I doing? Am I really enjoying this awkward slapstick comedy? The answer is yes. I watched Prison School and despite most of the characters being horrible people who deserved their punishments I found myself laughing my ass off and then crying in utter pain and confusion. Simply put, Prison School is fucking weird.

The premise is basically, peeping. The main characters are caught peeping. Only one of the main characters is actually a decent person who needed to be talked into peeping and even he has his down moments. He is the only one who feels regret or truly understands the implications of what he does as being towards people, even if some of it is selfish and because of a girl he likes.

Part of me wants to hate the student council. They’re abusive and manipulative, but the truth is they ARE giving these guys a chance after they peeped when they could’ve just thrown them out of school. They’re doing it for their own reasons and I can’t tell if they’re just going to be the big evil womenz or if they’re sympathetic, but it’s hard to ever completely take the side of the guys in this because they’re literally scum.

I love watching the guys. I really do. But they’re scum. It’d be so much easier to feel bad for them if they didn’t love to be punished only so they could have the opportunity to lick the Vice President’s boots. The only one with dignity tries to stick up for his friends since they didn’t rat him out and what happens? They almost disown him. Every ounce of likability in the other 4 is only because they 1. didn’t rat out the main character so he could almost get away with it 2. they are fucking funny.

How do I feel about this show? I have no fucking clue. Everyone is so fucked up in this show and the only person who seems to have any morality is the main character, but even he is still kind of a jerk. I’m rooting for him to finally be honest with Chiyo and her to forgive him. The only really good person in this show is Chiyo, who tries to see the good in everyone. Poor freakin Chiyo.

Given that every action the main character does now will basically be slapstick on accident, I feel for the guy. He really just wants to do it all and be done with it. He’s a good person at heart just a damn pervert. Meanwhile his friends are scum, the council is a bunch of blackhearted abusive assholes, and the student body is too quick to judge all men because of it.

Is. . .is this a fucking symbolic comedy for fucking feminism? Is this literally saying ‘yes some men are terrible people and deserve to be punished, but you shouldn’t go too far?’ If this hilarious comedy that also makes me sick to my stomach is really symbolic I will punch someone. In any case, I digress. I can’t stop covering this just yet, I will at least give it one more episode to try and sate my curiosity and deep deep confusion.

AOI ONI REFERENCES GAIZ

Sidekick’s First Impression 

Prison School is honestly the only thing I truly cared about going into the season…..and I was late to cover it, I am such a failure.

Anyways! I think I liked this even more than I was expecting – and honestly, even as a manga reader I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, if you get what I mean. Prison School is not an ordinary series – its barebones premise is just an excuse for extreme, elaborate situations for crazy facial expressions, tongue-in-cheek (dirty) humor, and Hana kicking ass. Hana’s the bestest by the way.

So I’d say the anime’s first episode managed to get that across, maybe even better? I think I actually found the anime funnier than the manga – that’s obviously because the anime REALLY trims the fat, we’re looking at an entire volume covered in this very first episode. In a way it helps though; they’re obviously rushing things, but it’s Prison School and there’s barely any coherent plot to note of (till the later chapters, at least) so speeding through the jokes may have made things a lot funnier for me this time round.

I’m not entirely sure what makes Prison School click the way it does for me though. I’m probably guilty of double standards for this considering how I didn’t enjoy Gangsta which also shoved tits and ass and violence into my face (just kidding, I like whatever I goddamn please). I think part of it has to do with how darn absurd the whole thing is, taking itself seriously and yet at the same time…doesn’t? I love all the elaborate,bombastic situations it presents such that every second is like life and death (not literally of course!) for the boys, I love the crazy faces (AND EXCELLENT VOICE ACTING KANAHANA WAS SOOOO GOOD!), I even love the fanservice, but I think there was a lot of real thought put into it with the little details – Joe having ‘canker sores’ and always conceals his face, Gakuto making every sentence a goddamn poem, Kiyoshi being a half-decent human being hanging out with the wrong crowd….there’s quite a lot to love here.

My only gripe is that the animation looks a bit odd – movement seems a bit clunky as if they’re missing in-betweens, but that was probably to retain the amazingly detailed art in the original manga, and that there wasn’t much about the music department. The backing tracks, OP and ED were all forgettable. Good thing the rest of the episode was so good it’s ingrained in my head.

Possibility of Watching: YES, YES, YES

Possibility of Blogging: Since I was late to the blogging party I can give this one to Oki if she decides to continue. Otherwise I’m going with this as my pick of the season.

Oki