Pretty Packaging: PRISON SCHOOL Provides Peeks At Perversity

Japanese animation can be decidedly frown-worthy at times. There are of course the infamous hardcore porn series, which are called "hentai" (meaning "pervert" or "perverse"), but for audiences who are grossed-out by those there is a wide selection of softcore "ecchi", a word meaning "naughty" in a sexual way.

And then of course, there is sexual fanservice, occasional steps into "ecchi" or "hentai" which happen in series which are, in itself, not really about sex. As you can imagine, these definitions are not exactly strict, leading to quite some blurred areas (pun not intended).

Prison School is a series which defies easy pegging, though for safety's sake I'd label it "ecchi". In it, five students are the first boys to be allowed to join a prestigious boarding school for girls, but after being caught peeking in the girls' shower area, they get a choice: be expelled or be sent to a special prison wing, where for one month they will be the masochistic playthings of several sadistic female wardens. The boys all choose the prison wing and things get very weird after that.

Like Kill La Kill, Prison School relentlessly spoofs fanservice, "ecchi" and "hentai" while providing lots of it as well. It's satire by way of exaggeration, and while it walks a sleazy path, it constantly asks you "Is THIS what you wanted?" and, should the answer be a yes, "WHY THE HELL is this what you wanted?"

Anime Limited released the series on Blu-ray in the UK last week, and I couldn't help but laugh when I saw what the cheeky distributor from Scotland had done with it. So here is a gallery of shots. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through them, or at the center of each to see a bigger version!

And here it is, a rather unassuming but sturdy hard cardboard slipcase.

Inside the slipcase are a digipak and a booklet. So far, so normal.

The contents taken out of the slipcase.

The contents opened.

The reverse art on the Digipak, showing two of the three principal wardens. So far, no sign yet of Meiko, the ultra-voluptuous vice-president who can be considered to be the series' calling card (slash mascot).

The booklet is a softcover one, and 40 pages thick.

In it, you get episode overviews, character designs, background art, and an interview with director Mizushima Tsutomu (also of xxxHOLIC, Shirobaku and Girls und Panzer fame...).

The (back)end of a fine, if not particularly memora... hey, what's this? The backside is a flyer which can be easily removed, revealing...

Meiko! There she is!

Yes, Anime Limited have given the boxset's backside an ample dose of the vice-president's frontside. It's a 3D lenticular image, to get the points across even better. As a collector of lenticular images, I had to laugh.

If you are one of those persons who can see 3D images by looking cross-eyed, you can use the bottom two images to check this.

If you're one of those RARE persons who can see 3D images by looking wide-eyed (which is better but bloody hard), or who use a stereoscope of some kind, check the top two images.

And that marks the end for real!