Aug 17, 2025
Insane art. Dripped out with style.
A cyberpunk open-air prison filled with “delinquents” who have to go to school and have formed a society to rise up against the abuse they face. It’s like juvie on crack; the teachers and the guards have unquestionable authority and are allowed to beat up/murder students. And the teenagers rebel mostly by behaving like little sh1ts and doing drugs.
In this setting, we see 3 new students getting dropped off and adapting to everything. The plot is really fun when the main characters are allowed to exist in the world and explore it. Sadly, that isn’t the case for most of
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the manga. From about chapter 9, they are always reacting to the events around them and are not making any meaningful decisions.
And even if I try to ignore that fumble, the rest of the story is pretty generic, with most interesting elements (the whole cyberpunk aesthetic) being fully unexplored. And all that is pretty disappointing if you are reading the title expecting a decent story… however, if you are reading Fortified School expecting it’s an art book, then you’ll have an amazing time.
Unparalleled creativity with the composition in some of these panels. The variety of different pens, brushes, and styles the illustrator uses is impressive on its own, but how he takes all that and creates these pages is insane. You can feel the soul, the work, the creativity that was poured into some of the illustrations… pure cinema man.
The title feels like an amateur writer collaborating with an amazing artist and publishing a very creative piece of work. Luckily, the illustrator Shinichi Hiromoto, later in his career, about 6 years after Fortified School, was given a chance to write and illustrate his own manga.
This is worth reading exclusively because of the art. It’s such a fun experience. 7/10 would’ve loved if the story was good too, but I’m glad that at least it gave some insane plot beats to Mr. Hiromoto to illustrate.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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