Meiko Shiraki (白木芽衣子Shiraki Meikos) is a supporting character of Prison School. She is a third-year student in attendance at Hachimitsu Academy and the Vice-President of the Underground Student Council, a vigilante school organization.
Meiko is put in charge of guard duty during the two months that the boys are incarcerated in the school’s Prison Block. Meiko is the subordinate and best friend of Mari Kurihara, the president of the USC.
She is the mascot character of Prison School. Meiko started out as an antagonist, subsequently becoming a supporting ally to Kiyoshi Fujino and the boys.
Appearance
Meiko is a tall and attractive young woman with gray hair that she wears in a bun with bangs swept to the right side while she has neck-length hair strands hanging on either side, brown eyes with oval-shaped glasses, and a slender but voluptuous body.
She is usually seen wearing the school uniform with a miniskirt, oval shaped glasses, tights, knee-length boots and an open collar, showcasing her cleavage, and brandishes a horse-whip for torture methods on the prisoners. In middle school, she used to have medium-length straight hair with square bangs hanging over her forehead before a younger Mari Kurihara convinced her to tie her hair back. She is known to sweat quite profusely when facing fear of upsetting or disappointing Mari in any way.
Personality
Meiko is a highly confident girl who is commonly seen around campus in a scanty outfit and her reputation for being a sadist and a misandrist is well known, especially to the five boys whom she physically punishes during their detention. She is often seen with a horse whip that she uses for punishing detainees who disobey her and Takehito Morokuzu is regularly her victim. Meiko has immense physical strength and is a capable combatant, using her physical abilities to loyally aid her best friend and superior Mari Kurihara (the USC President) as a senior member of the Underground Student Council.
During her spare time, she completes a hundred or more squats and push ups and she is capable of many brutal feats of strength. Meiko diligently yet strictly fulfils her guard duty over the male prisoners. However, she can be sympathetic to the male prisoners; even fulfilling courtesies towards the boys by giving them prisoners’ gifts each month, “deathwishes” before their expulsion & even gathering insects for Gakuto’s last meal. Meiko used to be a shy and meek girl in middle school who was bullied by a younger Kate Takenomiya due to her large breast size. She befriended a younger Mari and she regains her confidence when Mari convinced Meiko to defend herself from the bullying. However, when she was led into believing that she burned a tree and killed Mari’s crow hatchlings as a result, she loses confidence and reverts to her prior shyness.
Meiko is very devoted to Mari, almost to the point of obsession. She’s also shown to have a weakness against men with chest hair as proven when Reiji Andou‘s long nipple hair is exposed during their arm wrestling competition. While she sweats profusely from rigorous workouts, it tends to be one of her greater quirks when she’s in a state of fear.
Plot
After the boys intrude into the female bathing area of a swimming pool during the “peeping incident”, Meiko and Hana Midorikawa capture four of the boys with Kiyoshi Fujino missing. She questions Takehito Morokuzu about the location of Kiyoshi and he swears that there were only four boys in the operation. Due to this, she whips his crotch ten times. The Underground Student Council President Mari Kurihara captures Kiyoshi & all of them face exclusion for the peeping incident, but are incarcerated in the Prison Block for one month instead. Meiko is assigned to the position of guard duty overseeing the male prisoners on a day-to-day basis, completing morning roll call and supervising the prison timetable until night. She punishes them heavily during their detention, whipping them with her riding crop and hurling verbal abuse at them. However, the boys’ overarching lust forces Mari to replace her with Hana as their punishment became a source of pleasure to the boys. Meiko introduces Hana to the boys as the USC Secretary & school’s fourth-best karate champion. Soon enough, she ends up leading away a tearful Hana after Kiyoshi sees her urinating which results in Meiko ending prison work for the day.
As a result of Kiyoshi’s actions, Meiko takes up the guard duty on a daily basis once more. Afterwards, Meiko and Mari discuss the perverted behavior of the boys while they are bathing together, when Mari says that the thought of releasing them unsettles her. Meiko is then told by Mari to increase the level of the punishment the boys are administered and replaces her riding crop with a horse-whip when she is on patrol. Both Gakuto and Kiyoshi are whipped severely by her after the waste-disposal shed collapses during their prison labor shift. During its repair, Kiyoshi and Gakuto contrive to dig a large escape hole in the waste-disposal area despite her regular patrol. However, Meiko announces that the boys will be helping at the Track and Field District Meet when she takes applications for prisoner gifts. The prisoners all receive their gifts from Meiko, including the MP3 player and wireless speakers for Gakuto’s breakout plan.
The breakout occurs successfully without Meiko knowing. Mari informs Meiko that Kiyoshi broke out by stealing Chiyo Kurihara‘s uniform and cross dressing as a girl to go on a date with her. The USC learnt of the incident from Chairman when she reports Kiyoshi to him. As a result, Meiko places Kiyoshi in solitary confinement and beats him regardless of his protests. Mari and Meiko attempt to have him expelled, but Chiyo intervenes & the USC only fail in forcing Kiyoshi’s expulsion when Chiyo threatens the council with her own. The USC then begins to enact “Danshi Taigaku Operation”, codenamed DTO; a plan to manipulate the boys to commit two more breakouts in order to expel them. Meiko is forced by Mari to wear tight clothes on patrol and is told to withdraw punishment from Andre until his masochism coerces him to breakout. She also gives Shingo Wakamoto daily leave from prison and good food with the excuse of running errands for the USC. When her clothes burst, Andre forces himself through the weakened wall to reach the Vice President, resulting in the second breakout. That day, Meiko also supervises the improvement of the fence and wall around the Prison Block, resulting in Shingo being late for curfew against the USC’s warning. With three breakouts complete, Mari congratulates Meiko for DTO’s success, apologizing for pretending to mistrust her and having punished her with tight clothes.
The USC informs the Chairman of the three breakouts, prompting their expulsion in a weeks’ time. Meiko offers the male prisoners last meals as students of Hachimitsu Academy before their impending expulsion according to their choice; even gathering crickets for Gakuto’s last meal. The boys write a petition to avoid exclusion and although Meiko bins the petition, there is a petition hidden in the expulsion forms. The Chairman grants the boys a one-day extension and two schoolgirls break into the Prison Block to help the boys. During Meiko’s night patrol of the Prison Block’s courtyard, Anzu Yokoyama acts as a decoy to occupy her when she is on guard. Chiyo waits for Kiyoshi and enters the courtyard after Meiko captures Anzu for interrogation. When the boys successfully prove that they were framed by the USC to breakout from the Prison Block multiple times to the Chairman, they are freed and their imminent expulsions are overturned.
The USC are soon jailed by the official Aboveground Student Council for physically abusing the boys and violating the School Code in their attempts at framing them, after being placed in dorm arrest by the Chairman. After Meiko is imprisoned, Kate Takenomiya begins bullying her in prison. Mari reveals to Hana that Meiko had been bullied in elementary school days where she was subjected to Kate’s harassment along with Mari. Kate’s bullying in prison escalates until she & the official Student Council framed Meiko with burning a tree with a crowlings’ nest. Due to the mental trauma of the bullying and her role in burning the crowlings’ nest, she goes into a comatose state. When she awakens, memories of certain incidents in the wake of Kate’s bullying cause her mental regression into her old personality as a timid bullied child of elementary school. During Chiyo’s visit to the prison for Mari, she accuses the SC President of bullying Meiko and forces them to drop Meiko’s sentence to protect her mental health. Thereafter, Meiko was released from prison in the form of solitary dorm arrest.
In the All-Student-Council Cavalry Battle at the school’s Sports Festival, Meiko competes for the USC after Mari and Kiyoshi successfully nullify Kate’s leverage over them. Despite the boys’ efforts, they only manage to successfully return Meiko to her old personality as the USC’s Vice-President hours before the match for only a few seconds. The boys and USC discovered that carbonated soda restores her previous strength and personality. In the Cavalry Battle, Gakuto assembles a soda delivery apparatus to wear on her back – which did not work as intended and was discarded later on. The boys and USC also realized their assumption was wrong, drinking of the carbonated soda only caused Meiko to assume her previous appearance of the Vice-President persona with neither her harsh personality nor strength. Near the end of the match, Meiko underwent a near-death experience, but regained her harsh personality and strong devotion to Mari. With renewed vigor, she declared her intent to punish Andre. Meiko proceeds to challenge Risa Bettou‘s control over Andre almost effortlessly, causing Andre to shut down for the remainder of the match. Kate’s team was therefore rendered immobile, allowing Mari to confront Kate directly. Meiko subsequently assisted Mari to attempt to force Kate to surrender by kicking Risa and Mitsuko Yokoyama off Andre, but Kate pulled an ultimate trump card in the form of Mitsuko’s clumsiness. This resulted in the destruction of the prison and forces the cavalry match to be declared a tie between the ASC and USC.
After the match, Kiyoshi attempted to solicit sponsorship from the USC for the upcoming BBQ party. Meiko was infuriated and accused Kiyoshi of trying to rip her off when he quickly bargained down from the proposed 20,000 yen to merely 1,000 yen per head. Meiko was last seen putting Andre through physical abuse by lifting him up and throwing him down, much to the protest of Risa. Meiko’s initial plan was to use Andre as a substitute for a barrel to impress Mari with a barrel-throwing performance during the BBQ party. Andre was eventually moved by Risa’s concern for his well-being and decided not to go through with the barrel-throwing performance, instead ordering a barrel to be delivered to the BBQ venue instead. Nevertheless, Meiko quickly disregarded these turn of events to focus her attention on finding Mari after realizing she was going to leave school. Meiko and Kate went to the airport together, on the way arguing with each other on who Mari likes more. They failed to catch up with Mari and sat down together by the seashore in silent regret.
Relationships
Mari Kurihara
Mari and Meiko have been friends since middle school, in addition to being the first one she had. She has great admiration for her to the point of being obsessed because every time Meiko makes a serious mistake or a carelessness, she starts to sweat too much. Since Mari told her to be proud of herself and her physical complexion to prevent her from being psychologically abused again, she protects her and will do whatever she can to achieve it.
Meiko is known to sweat quite profusely when facing fear of upsetting or disappointing Mari in any way.
Hana Midorikawa
Hana is a good friend and a person who appreciates Meiko’s ideas.
Kate Takenomiya
Meiko was bullied by Kate in middle school before she met Mari Kurihara.
Trivia
- With the pile-driver as her signature move, Meiko has studied the art of professional wrestling. Also, with the leglock as her other signature move, she is a proficient practitioner of Japanese jūdō.
- In the manga, Meiko Shiraki is billed as 180cm or 5 ft 11 in while wearing 4 inch stilettos, and her B/W/H measurements are estimated to be 115cm (44), 60cm (24), and 93cm (36). However in this live-action drama, Meiko’s actress Asana Mamoru is only 171cm or 5 ft 7 ½ in, and her measurements are approximately 88cm (35E), 55cm (22), and 87cm (34).
- Meiko enjoys American root beer, a popular drink in the Okinawan culture of Akira Hiramoto’s childhood.
- With Meiko’s obsessive exercises and fast metabolism, she weighs over 123.4 pounds over the series (119.5 to 120.0 in the manga).
- There is an animation inconsistency where Meiko’s breast and butt sizes would often go from being usually massive to reduced proportions, this is highly noticeable when her breasts are exposed in the anime.
- Meiko’s appearance and characteristics mostly bear striking resemblances to Namco‘s 3D fighting game femme-fatales such as Nina Williams and Isabella Valentine from Tekken and Soul Calibur respectively.
- Meiko is somewhat comparable to Ratched the Big Nurse from Ken Kesey‘s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: both are hair-bun wearing, intimidating, domineering, misandristic, tyrannical, massive-breasted women who are of trusted supervision to all troubled males inside of oppressive and emasculating institutions. Both were also defeated by getting their breasts exposed from having their tops torn off and making a final appearance in front of their formerly oppressed males with shame.
- Aside from sweating a lot when she works out, Meiko breaks out in constant sweat attacks when she thinks things aren’t coming along as they should be or when she’s failed President Mari Kurihara.