Akira Hiramoto's school comedy manga now has 4 million copies in print

This year's ninth issue of Kodansha's Young Magazine is revealing on Monday that Akira Hiramoto's Kangoku Gakuen (Prison School) manga will not appear in the issue because of the author's poor health. In addition to the announcement, Hiramoto's characters exclaim "He has influenza!?" and "For real…!?". Hiramoto apologized, and another character advised readers to remember to gargle and wash their hands.

The same issue also announced that the manga has 4 million copies in print.

Hiramoto launched the manga in Kodansha's Young Magazine in February 2011. The comedy manga takes place at a prestigious all-girls high school with a student body of 1,000. The school decides to allow boys to attend, and five boys enter the school dreaming of a harem life, but end up instead forced to live almost as prisoners within the school. Kodansha will ship the 16th volume in Japan on March 6.

The manga won the Best General Manga award alongside Yūji Moritaka and Keiji Adachi's Gurazeni manga at Kodansha's 37th Annual Manga Awards in May.

Publisher Yen Press has licensed the manga for release in North America.