I've been seeing praise for this series on /a/ and elsewhere, but always managed to avoid it, based solely on its premise, judging a book by its cover, as it were. It wasn't necessarily the fact that the girls were monsters, so much as it was that the series seems to just be haremshit. But then more recently I decided I don't really have anything against haremshit, that I can actually enjoy the generic proceedings of so many same-y series falling under the same trappings of 'x' genre (all haremshit is the same thing with ever-so-slightly different-looking girls, all shounenshit is the same thing with ever-so-slightly different-looking superpowers, &c.). The main issue, then, was that I couldn't quite see past the monstrous aspects of the girls. Miia looks hot, but she has a long snake body. Papi looks hot, but she has bird/dinosaur legs and wings for arms. Cerea is a fucking horse. And so on.
I don't remember why I actually first bought this volume. Pretty sure it was in part inspired by seeing Volume 2 for sale at Books-A-Million so frequently, making me believe certain manga volumes (really, a shitload of Seven Seas stuff) was being bargain-binned because no one wanted to buy shit with big cartoon titties adorning the book covers. Or in the case of Monster Musume, Volume 2, Papi's prominently displayed tight bird ass (what an odd thing to say!). So I had no problem buying Prison School in a physical store because the covers themselves are pretty tame, gigantic "parental advisory" label notwithstanding. And I've bought Senran Kagura, Volume 2, at the very same Books-A-Million, whose cover is deceptively "clean" (okay, I've not yet read it, but the 3DS game's story is pretty serious, so I can imagine the manga adaptation wouldn't be so wholly focused on T&A as one might think). But if I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure I decided to check this series out after having read a little bit of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, thus realizing that manga about monster girls can make for a funny read, regardless of how inhuman the girls might sometime appear.
So anyway, this series is pretty good so far. It starts out quite bold, making it seem far more lewd than it turns out to be, with Miia constricting Kurusu (as a snake does its prey) until he jacks off the tip of her tail, prompting the exclamation, "I'm gonna cum!," a phrase I had never expected to read in an official English translation (in all honesty, I've read enough erotic ecchi romantic comedy shit online that seemed a bit too 'racy' for American consumption - Nozoki Ana is one major example). There's also quite a bit of exposed breasts, complete with clearly visible nipples, perhaps quite deserving of the shrinkwrap encasing the volumes, protecting our innocent children from the horrors of witnessing cartoon breasts (!). Actually, it's quite odd, since there are plenty of times when nipples remain covered, as might befit an age-13-and-up manga, for example when Miia might have her hair falling down over her tits, as if OKAYADO is trying to censor himself. Or maybe he's trying to simply titillate the audience with some teasing instead of explicit nudity, but then why the hell would you do that when we've already seen exposed nipples? It seems unnecessary. It's better when he gives the girls wet shirts, such that the bunched-up material might obscure the actual stems of nipples, leaving only areolas visible. Not that I'm against girl's-hair-falling-down-over-breasts, but I don't know, maybe it would be better to not just have it look like Miia's glued her hair to her nipples, and maybe have the hair slide away from her nipples sometimes - make it marginally more realistic.
Regardless, the book itself is pretty good. The humor is sound, taking full advantage of the basic premise by thrusting Kurusu into silly situations based on the idea that monster girls are being integrated into Japanese society as protected species. So there's a couple of gyaru trying to insult Miia when she's on a date with Kurusu, and she's angered to a point of wanting to lash out and hit them, but monster girls aren't allowed to harm humans (or vice versa) because it would prove the integration to be a failure, so Kurusu jumps in and gets his face smacked by her tail. The slapstick is thus augmented by cartoonish facial expressions, and indeed we rarely get a glimpse of Kurusu's normal face, since he's usually overreacting to some event or other, and pretty much only ever has a silly facial expression. There are also a strange number of animal puns, particularly concerning Cerea's horse features, but I can't really tell if these are genuine effects from OKAYADO's writing, or if they were shoehorned in via translators fucking about. Indeed, the puns feel like something out of the dubs for Pokemon or Digimon, which only augments the silliness.
The girls are pretty great, and OKAYADO does well to space their introductions out a little. We start only with Miia, the lamia, known initially for her big breasts, her hips (because lamiai slither around all day, thus strengthening their hips, is the explanation), and her possessive love for Kurusu (Cerea would later dwarf Miia's tits). Miia gets the first two chapters to herself, though they also kind of double as world-building chapters. She loves Kurusu because he accepted her without being shocked at her appearance or anything, and this results in a deep confusion between love and lust, wherein Miia seems to actively oppose the anti-fraternization laws by being always ready and willing for sex with her "Darling" (though in typical haremshit fashion, Kurusu tries his best not to get laid ever, but at least it makes sense here, as it would be extremely illegal for him to fuck one of the monster girls). I don't really get why Miia has elf-like ears, though.
Anatomically speaking, Papi the harpy is Best Girl. She has a slim body, with flat chest but a well-sculpted ass, justified in-universe that harpies are so fit because they fly around all the time and need small-ish bodies so as to not be weighed down so much while airborne. But really it's just probably an excuse to have a slimmer body type (even Yu-Gi-Oh! decided it was necessary to give Harpy Lady and her Sisters big tits). Personality-wise, Papi's the most interesting. She generally comes off as childlike, not being particularly intelligent, to a point where she speaks in the third-person, and often gets tongue-tied trying to call herself "Papi the harpy." But in actuality she's quite cunning, abusing her apparently low intelligence in order to manipulate Kurusu ("Boss," as she calls him) into suggestive scenarios, trying to tease him into arousal, under the guise of merely innocent play.
Cerea the centaur is probably actually the Best Girl here. I can't really get over the fucking horse body, but her personality is fantastic, her pride as a noble knight often causing her to get flustered by any potentially lewd goings-on. Sexually, her main draw is her gigantic tits, completely outsizing Miia's, which is quite a feat, as one can tell by a simple glance at the volume's cover. But still, that fucking horse body - so weird! Papi's legs aren't hard to tolerate, as they're just like dinosaur legs, which of course aren't sexy, but at least they look pretty cool. Like you'd be fucking a Rathian from Monster Hunter. Not that I'm into that, but I'm just saying, it's badass. But a horse body? That's just strange. But really the main issue is that Cerea's human half has blonde hair, and her horse body has brown fur, though I suppose maybe her tail is at least blonde. Still somewhat inconsistent, especially considering Miia's hair and scales are both red, and Papi's hair and feathers are both blue. I mean, I guess horses can have manes and tails of one color and the rest of their body as a different color, but isn't still usually just dark brown long-hair and light brown short-hair? I don't know enough about horses, I guess.
Anyway, good stuff, and the overall presentation is fun enough that I don't really feel like a pervert for having this in my collection, though of course I'd probably avoid showing it off to people. Or if I did, I'd go further to show more explicit shit, to prove I'm not specifically into monster girls, but rather sexually explicit manga about cartoon ass and titties in general. (What's wrong with me?)