Prison School

Episode 6

Lest the audience forget that Prison School aims to titillate, this week's episode goes out of its way to remind them. Since the most explicit images are heavily censored by glaringly obnoxious white bars, it doesn't fully succeed. Still, the show continues to push the boundaries of what can be shown on television.

Some of the "sexy" scenarios found in episode 6 have been utilized ad nauseam in other ecchi anime. (Cream frosting being used to represent something else of the white creamy variety? Yawn.) Conversely, Hana and her urine-related depravity is not something you typically see in mainstream shows. Then again, given the uncomfortable layers of sexual assault lurking behind her actions, that's no surprise.

Lasciviousness aside, the prison fiction trope of the week is "the snitch." Enticed by delicious food and the chance to leave campus for a limited amount of time, Shingo agrees to educate the Underground Student Council on the other prisoners' weaknesses. He's still upset about his sentence being extended as a result of Kiyoshi's escape, which explains why he's eager to get the unassuming protagonist in trouble. Unfortunately, instead of Kiyoshi, the ant-loving hoodie enthusiast Joe becomes his first victim.

Fiercely determined to expel the boys, the Underground Student Council hatches a plan to entice Joe into violently acting out. It's still difficult to pinpoint exactly how much logic to throw out the window when watching Prison School. Viewers can accept a lot of unbelievable things about the premise, but details like "if the boys try to escape three times, we have the power to expel them" seem contrived and convenient. (You couldn't just expel them to begin with?) Nevertheless, this might be one of the only pieces of prison fiction where the jailers are eager to get rid of their prisoners—though not to let them roam the grounds freely, of course.

With Kiyoshi's suspicions about Shingo aroused and the uneasy tension between his fellow prisoners beginning to break, the series heads in what could prove an interesting direction. After being relegated to the sidelines for the first five episodes, Joe is given an abundance of screen time and dialogue, revealing a disturbingly dark side to his character. Mari predicted her trap would elicit an overblown reaction from him, but she was clearly unaware of how much danger she was putting the student council members in. There's the glimmer of a crack in her stony exterior when Kiyoshi saves her from incurring his friend's wrath, but predictably, she's quick to cover it up. The dramatic tension present during the escape story is likely to resurface as a result of the Underground Student Council's plans going awry.

This week's Prison School deftly shifts the story in a new direction. The prison snitch plotline isn't entirely original, but Prison School has proven to be the perfect vehicle for reexamining genre tropes and make them fresh again. Although episode 6 seems more concerned with over-the-top raunchiness than story development, it lays nice groundwork for things to come.

Rating: B-

Prison School is currently streaming on Funimation.

Amy is a YA fantasy author who has loved anime for two decades.