Women’s Prison Style Through the Eyes of a Beautiful Ex-Inmate Manga Artist

Stretching out the cardigan to create moe-sode sleeves!

Since last year, the name “Anonymous, Fluid Crime Group” (nicknamed Tokuryu) has been frequently mentioned in connection with criminal activity. In late May this year, Yoshinobu Kusunoki (59), Commissioner General of the National Police Agency, convened a meeting of heads of criminal divisions from across the country and instructed them to strengthen measures against Tokuryu-related crimes such as fraud.

According to the “2024 Crime Situation Statistics” released by the National Police Agency in February, the number of recognized penal code offenses increased by 4.9% year-on-year to 737,679 cases. This marks three consecutive years of rising crime since 2022. Amid the growing crime rate, the number of inmates in prisons has also increased.

Illustrating the lesser-known realities of women’s prisons in manga is Moe Aizawa, who also works as an adult film actress. Aizawa herself served approximately 13 years in prison. In this interview, she shares insights into the clothing situation inside women’s prisons (all statements in quotation marks are from Aizawa).

“What I’ll discuss this time is the clothing situation in women’s prisons. Essentially, regardless of whether you are male or female, everyone in prison wears the issued clothes. Pajamas, work clothes, and other garments suited to the purpose or season—prisoners typically wear three to four types of clothing. Naturally, there’s no room for fashion at all.

Prisoners are focused on confronting their own crimes, so fashion isn’t a priority but even while serving time, people want to express themselves. This is especially true for women. Personally, I often wore the so-called ‘moe-sode’ in prison. I would pull out the sleeves of the cardigan worn under my work uniform and wear it slightly off the shoulder. This became a small trend within the prison.”

It wasn’t just fashion that mattered. Even as inmates, many women wanted to stay looking good at all times. Aizawa revealed she used some unexpected tools for makeup:

“I had thin, so-called ‘maro eyebrows,’ so I wanted to fill them in. I often used 4B or 3B pencils to draw my eyebrows. For eye makeup, I used brush pens borrowed for sutra copying. Thanks to that, my eyes always looked wide open! I was using tools meant to erase worldly desires to fulfill my worldly wishes.”

Other inmates reportedly used soap as a substitute for perfume. Even within strict rules, many female prisoners put effort into fashion and makeup as a way to express their own identity.