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1'''''Warning!''' {{Late Arrival Spoiler}}s before the final story arc (Kiyoshi's Love Confession) are left unmarked!''
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3* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: One of ''Prison School's'' highlights is the incredible art. Not to mention the way the realistic character designs clash with the over-the-top comedy of the series.
4* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
5** Kate, Mari's arch-nemesis for the position of Student Council President and eventually her chief torturer. While Kate is the main antagonist of the second arc, and shows tendencies of being an AlphaBitch, it is also equally arguable that her actions are justified and Mari and the Underground Student Council really do deserve all the crap she imposes onto them because of their numerous human rights violations e.g. illegal imprisonment, torture, forced labour, etc. just for peeping, while Kate never acts all that viciously to anybody else who commit minor felonies, even to the boys, unless they help Mari in some way. Besides, the only reason the [[EnemyMine boys decide to forge an alliance with Mari]] in the first place was because Kate's administration [[SillyReasonForWar replace the USC's previous Wet T-shirt contest with a clamming event.]]
6** For Chiyo-Kiyoshi and Hana-Kiyoshi shippers: There's room for interpretation for Hana's actions during and right after the Sports Festival arc, where she played a part in ruining Kiyoshi's social life at school, requests for Chiyo not to socialize with Kiyoshi, and tore up the memo that Chiyo sent to Kiyoshi. Did Hana ruin Kiyoshi's reputation for the greater goal of ensuring the USC's survival, or did she do that so that no other girl would get close to him? By asking Chiyo to ignore Kiyoshi, was she really concerned for Chiyo's reputation or does she not want the two to be together? Was the tearing up of the memo an accident or intentional sabotage?
7** Mari's inner monologue in the final story arc claims that she is [[spoiler:atoning for [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom all the mess]] she had caused in the previous story arcs, by leaving for an exchange program. The questionable part is whether she is really atoning, or is that her own way of [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere running away from the problems she had caused]]? This alternative interpretation of her character holds especially strong given that her misandry is clearly still evident by the end of the series]].
8* ArcFatigue:
9** The Horseback challenge between the two Student Councils ended up suffering from this due to the large amount of focus being placed on the characters doing crazy antics to one another rather than actually competing in the Horseback game. Hell, even '''Mayumi''' of all characters (Chiyo's friend) got a chapter focused on her. Chairman Kurihara's wilderness side-adventure that goes on at the same time as the Horseback challenge doesn't help either. The arc proved to be so divisive because of its plot and length that readership for the series had taken a severe nosedive by the time it ended.
10** The events surrounding Chiyo's birthday also reached a breaking point amongst readers due to the slow pacing of having four stories going on at the same time. These four stories being: '''A)''' Kiyoshi trying to confess to Chiyo at the birthday location while Hana tries to reveal her own feelings for Kiyoshi, '''B)''' Meiko and Kate trying to reach the airport to stop Mari from leaving, '''C)''' Andre and Risa becoming an OfficialCouple, and '''D)''' The rest of the core supporting characters going down river on the bottle raft to reach the birthday location, but end up getting themselves lost. With the exception of the Andre and Risa plotline, the rest are dragged out with many back-to-back chapters of everyone simply trying to reach their final destination. Kiyoshi keeps getting roadblocked on the way to the birthday location, Meiko and Kate have a rough time getting to the airport, and the Gakuto, Shingo, Joe, Anzu, Satou, Mayumi group remain lost drifting further down the river on the bottle raft away from the birthday location.
11* AudienceAlienatingEnding: Every arc after the first one was met with some level of debate, but the final arc, Kiyoshi's Love Confession, became despised for a massive SuddenDownerEnding in what was otherwise a comedic {{Ecchi}} series up to that point. [[spoiler:Basically, all the focus goes to the Kiyoshi/Chiyo/Hana LoveTriangle, which is 'resolved' when Hana [[TheBadGuyWins succeeds]] in destroying Kiyoshi's chances at getting with Chiyo, who is hinted to become a [[DoesNotLikeMen misandrist]] and take over the school, turning it back into a misandrist hellhole while Maki 'atones' for her role by running away from everything.]] And to top it off, the wet T-shirt contest that had been built up never occurred, with the epilogue only briefly alluding to it and doing nothing to expand on the other elements. This was widely viewed as a needlessly mean-spirited conclusion that resets the story to where it was in the beginning, and thus [[ShaggyDogStory renders everything Kiyoshi and his allies accomplished meaningless]], and turned [[spoiler:Hana]] from a beloved EnsembleDarkhorse into [[BaseBreakingCharacter being outright hated by some fans for bringing about the unpopular ending]].
12* BaseBreakingCharacter:
13** Fan reaction to [[CuteClumsyGirl Mitsuko]] was split due to her pretty much coming out of nowhere and becoming close to Gakuto, unlike the already well-established and liked Anzu (and the [[DieForOurShip hated]] Chiyo). Either she's the perfect partner for a character who deserves happiness, or completely generic. However, after she was given a bigger role in the overarching story by being revealed as the TokenGoodTeammate for the Aboveground Student Council and the relationship aspects between her and Gakuto were severely downplayed, most of the hatred she garnered has been sent back to Chiyo.
14** Hana became this after her actions in the final arc. Many fans love her and root for her to end up with Kiyoshi instead of Chiyo (whom they find boring in comparison) and even go so far as to root for her in the final arc where she is the BigBad, [[spoiler:and were happy that [[TheBadGuyWins she won in the end]]]]. However, there is a section of the fanbase that outright hates her and/or finds her a terrible match for Kiyoshi because of the same negative traits that others adore, and find their relationship to be toxic and borderline abusive.
15* BrokenBase:
16** The anime is either a great adaptation that got the crazy tone of the manga down perfectly, or it's a rushed and censored trainwreck that people can't get immersed in due to uneven pacing. [[note]]Some episodes cram in as many as '''eight''' chapters.[[/note]]
17** The final chapter. While a return to the crazier sides of the series, fans all over have different opinions on how it and the series as a whole were handled. Some do like that Kiyoshi's lies finally caught up to him and felt his humiliation was thematically appropriate. Some [[AudienceAlienatingEnding hate the ending]], given that almost the entire focus of the final arc went to Kiyoshi/Hana/Chiyo and only a handful of characters got a positive resolution while [[ShaggyDogStory basically all the struggles of the main characters were rendered pointless]] in a bleak SuddenDownerEnding, and the epilogue failed to really address any of these points. Some hate the rushed feel of the last arc in general.
18* CatharsisFactor: The imprisonment and harsh treatment of Underground Student Council is seen as the most satisfying event in the manga. Especially when Mari attempts to gain the higher moral ground by remarking that she expects Kate to try and provoke her and her underlings to extend their sentences, and the look on her face when she is reminded that she did the same thing to the boys.
19* DesignatedHero: PlayedForLaughs. While the boys' punishment is beyond extreme, they ''are'' entirely at fault for acting like creeps and trying to peep on the girls' shower, and are only motivated to escape due to their desire to continue sexually harassing the school's female student body. The series pokes fun at this fact several times.
20* DesignatedVillain: Kate of the ASC in the second and third story arc (USC's imprisonment and the sports festival, respectively). Although [[{{Revenge}} her motivation]] is wrong, her actions aren't really any worse than what Mari did during the boys' imprisonment -- it's karma for the USC. Hence she's the main antagonist only because she happens to be in a personal feud with Mari AND happens to [[SillyReasonForWar replace the USC's previous Wet T-shirt contest with a clamming event.]]
21** Kate loses the "Designated" part of the DesignatedVillain when she begins getting innocent characters into trouble/prison in her quest for revenge.
22* DieForOurShip: Chiyo in canon is primarily a NiceGirl. But because a good chunk of the fandom ships Kiyoshi with Hana instead, Chiyo is frequently demonized by those same fans into a “slut” and even went so far as to [[RootingForTheEmpire root for Hana to destroy her relationship with Kiyoshi]] and say she deserved [[spoiler:having her heart broken by Hana’s manipulations in the final arc]], despite this clearly being portrayed as a bad thing.
23* DracoInLeatherPants: Hana Midorikawa... VERY much so. She is violent to the main characters, her interactions with Kiyoshi made her look insane in a childish way, and takes an antagonistic role in both the first and last story arcs [[spoiler:which have her single-handedly doom the men of the school to suffer under yet another regime of misandry]]. Yet it is exactly because of her interactions with Kiyoshi that the fandom found her to be the most entertaining character in the series and most of them shipped the two. Many even believed that Hana's eventual crush on Kiyoshi was "authentic love", disregarding the many times Hana has clearly and selfishly disregarded Kiyoshi's feelings and thoughts throughout the entire series and [[spoiler:flat-out destroyed his life and relationship with Chiyo in the final arc]], making the pairing come off as toxic and unhealthy.
24* EnsembleDarkhorse:
25** Hana is far and away the most popular character within the western fandom. Despite firmly being a supporting character throughout the first three story arcs and being far less prominent than both Mari and Meiko, she has topped every western popularity poll by a sizable margin. Her massive popularity was mostly due to her comedic entanglements with the main character Kiyoshi and to some extent her popular Anime VA Kana Hanazawa. The character's popularity along with her character development was such that she got upgraded to the main antagonist in the final story arc... which ended up turning her into a BaseBreakingCharacter.
26** The Chairman for most of the series only appears in a few chapters, usually for a few pages. However, the chapter where he has Kiyoshi explain why butts are better that breasts turned into a fairly popular meme that got a lot of people who didn't even read the series familiar with him.
27* FanonDiscontinuity: Basically every arc [[FirstInstallmentWins except the first]] is subject to this by at least some fans. The usual reason is that, with the boys mainly going their separate ways and Kiyoshi the only one still focused on, the series lost what made it so great. Other concerns include pacing issues, characters stagnating, and lees engaging conflicts, culminating in an ending that is flat-out despised by a good chunk of the fanbase.
28* FirstInstallmentWins: The first arc is pretty unanimously agreed to be the best, with its GreatEscape plot making the best use of the series' strengths. In comparison the others that followed it all contained some amount of [[BrokenBase Base-Breaking]] content that caused a divide in the fanbase.
29* HilariousInHindsight: ''Anime/PrettyCure'' fans may notice that Hana Midorikawa's name consists of two names Cure received in seasons that premiered after the release of ''Prison School'' in 2011: [[Anime/SmilePrecure Nao Midorikawa]] in 2012, and [[Anime/HugttoPrettyCure Hana Nono]] in 2018.
30* HoYay: Gakuto has gotten this with Kiyoshi and Joe.
31* JerkassWoobie: Meiko under Kate's leadership. At first she appears as one of the manga's most vicious antagonists, obeying Mari's every word and being the executive agent for the Academy's totalitarian and punishing system. However, it is soon revealed that she was in fact, a ShrinkingViolet who was hated and constantly bullied all her life, and only the friendship with Mari gave her a reason to live and stand up for herself to become the confident and shameless woman she was known to be. Meiko's attitude was less due out of an inherent hatred of men but more of the result of pleasing [[StrawFeminist Mari]] as her only meaning in life (to the point of begging for punishment if she failed her in any way and volunteering to take all of the harshest labour from her), and when Kate framed her for starting a fire that apparently killed Mari's most valued baby crows, she was broken so much by her failure that she reverted to her submissive and timid personality, providing Kate and her cronies more imperatives to abuse her.
32* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Kiyoshi who been paired with Hana, both Kurihara sisters, and even Gakuto.
33* MemeticBadass: The Chairman got this reputation after enduring a devastating car crash without injury. Combined with his reveal of surprisingly good wilderness survival skills, jokes quickly sprang up in the fandom about him having learned them from battling through the South American jungle in his search for the perfect ass.
34* MemeticMutation: In the end, [[SeriousBusiness boobs are nothing more than fake asses!]] [[labelnote:explanation]]Kiyoshi's appeal to prove to the Chairman that he is a trustworthy individual is to delivery a soliloquy on why asses are better than boobs. The absurdness of the whole rant has led to [[https://web.archive.org/web/20201111211257if_/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dmr7jzXW4AAA-ht.jpg the panel become a popular copypasta]].[[/labelnote]]
35* MoralEventHorizon:
36** Kate making Meiko think she burned alive a nest of baby crows. It destroys her self-confidence completely and reduces her into TheWoobie.
37** Mari [[QuestionableConsent tricking Kate into lesbian sex under false pretence.]]
38* NeverLiveItDown:
39** The series as a whole will never live down how [[ArcFatigue dragged out]] the cavalry battle between the two student councils was.
40** The series will also never live down how controversial the ending was, which it's universally agreed upon that the way it all ended was way too sudden.
41* OvershadowedByControversy: It's hard to find someone who is unaware of the English dub's well-known and contentious anti-Gamergate remark which exists in episode 7, even though it was removed from the DVD version.
42* RetroactiveRecognition: Masato Yano, who portrays the live action version of Shingo would later go on to portray [[Series/OhsamaSentaiKingOhger Racules Husty]].
43* TheScrappy:
44** Shingo is the most hated of the five boys among the Prison School fandom due to his hypocritical and selfish behavior. His status as this lessened considerably following his transition into TheAtoner, though many still find him to be obnoxious.
45** Early on, Mari is perhaps the most hated female character among the Prison School fandom, especially during her turn as the main antagonist in the first story arc. She redeemed herself in much of the fandom's eyes after going through some character development in the 2nd story arc though.
46* StrawmanHasAPoint: While the Official Student Council are seen as the "villains" of the second arc due to their harsh treatment of the Underground Student Council, [[NotSoDifferentRemark Kate does point that their treatment of the USC members is honestly not that different from how the USC members punished the boys.]] Both groups are abusive to their prisoners to the point of Human Rights Violations (the Stanford Prison Experiment even being referenced) and aren't above using blackmail. Even Kate tricking Meiko into thinking she'd burned alive a nest of Mari's baby crows is almost identical to the time Mari made it look like her crows were eating Joe's ants in order to provoke a violent reaction from him. In both cases, the animals turned out to be perfectly safe. After everything the USC did to the boys, it [[LaserGuidedKarma only seem fair that their punishment should be the same]]. However, this does end when they [[KickTheDog imprison the clearly innocent Kiyoshi and Chiyo]], and when Kate admits that the whole punishment is not out of justice or feminist ideology but only [[{{Revenge}} her personal plan to get back at Mari for dethroning her as the best]].
47* TooBleakStoppedCaring: The second story arc (USC's imprisonment) often garners this for some readers, especially in the beginning stages. On the USC's side it's karma for what they had earlier done to the boys, but on the ASC's side it's clear that Kate's no angel and her mistreatment of the USC is largely out of revenge and her own selfish motives. The boys' main motivation for subsequently teaming up with the USC against the ASC doesn't make them worth rooting for either.
48* TrappedByMountainLions: The Chairman's subplot regarding his amnesia. After aiding a hitchhiker, he saves a little boy's dog from drowning, then falls off a waterfall and loses his memory (well, everything except his love of '''ass'''). His adventures only get wackier from there, and unlike most examples of this trope, the fandom loved it more than the main plot.
49* {{Wangst}}: Hana's whining during her turn as a prisoner. Played for laughs ("That's karma bitch!") as well as part of Mari's plan to make Hana TheMole.
50* WinBackTheCrowd: Alongside ''Manga/FoodWars'' and ''Literature/{{Shimoneta}}'' which aired during the same season, this show helped give Creator/JCStaff a second wind among the anime fandom. Before this show J.C. Staff had received a lot of ridicule from anime fans for their low animation quality, the SeasonalRot of ''Literature/ShakuganNoShana'', and producing many widely ridiculed light novel adaptations like ''Literature/AriaTheScarletAmmo''. However this show and the two other examples listed above reminded fans that J.C. Staff can still work on unique and interesting new shows.
51* {{Woolseyism}}: The French manga translates "DTO" (Danshi Taigaku Operation, "Operation Expel the Men") as "ODC" (Opération Dehors les Cafards, or "Operation Drive the Cockroaches Out")

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