Who will be the next king of Granzreich? The five princes all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and Viktor issues his sons their final challenge before he makes his decision: give a keynote speech during the kingdom’s centennial celebration!
For Heine’s students, it’s like going from getting ready to celebrate spring break only to find out their final exams are now that week. And worse yet, none of them have experience with public speaking!
Not to worry; Heine’s there to help.
…But just help.
The Royal Tutor volume 17 brings the story to a close, and as often manga final volumes do, it centers around the characters’ futures. First, though, Heine confronts a loose thread from his past. While I remember the days of inhaling anything about Heine’s background, for him to coincidentally bump into an old friend in the last volume’s opening chapter felt too contrived. It’s also a very stand-alone chapter, and outside of a few flimsy connections, it almost could have taken place anywhere post-reveal. Volume 17 is on the thick side already at around 230 pages, but if the goal was to have one last demonstration of how Heine has changed, I wish Akai would have gone all-in with one final flashback chapter and then have this meeting that closed the book on Heine’s backstory. From the dark and into the light of the future, so to speak.
After Viktor’s assignment, Heine runs the four princes into a short public speaking drill camp, heavy emphasis on the drill camp. He suggests a test run with the palace staff, but the author skips the event. Too bad, as I wanted to see how many times Leonhard worked the word “torte” into his presentation. Then, to the princes’ horror, Heine says he’s not going to help with their actual speech, and so the king candidates are left to agonize over their work.
Those two weeks are mostly limited to Heine (and readers) observing the harrowed princes from the outside rather than showing them formulate their speeches, so it’s soon celebration day. The events pre- and post-speeches are exactly what you’d expect from a fun, family character-centered series drawing to a close: things can be a bit silly, the characters and scenery pretty, lots of old cameos, and most of all, a commitment for the future. Since even Eins has emotionally loosened up over the course of the series, this is not like, say, a sports series where the protagonist(‘s team) must win; it’s clear Granzreich will be fine no matter who has the crown.
Because of that, I thought Akai perhaps wouldn’t reveal who “won” and leave the answer to the readers’ own imaginations. Whether you would have preferred an open ending or not, Viktor’s successor is named. In fact, in the closing pages, the manga goes a little further as we learn the fates of the five princes. But technically, that narration mentions all of that information is “in the future”, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Akai was to revisit this world. There are details that are ripe for diving further into, and because of this, it’s a good compromise between cementing what happens and leaving it open to interpretation. So I think camps of both open and closed endings will be satisfied.
Yes, The Royal Tutor‘s last entry will likely have parts readers are rather meh about, but it is very faithful to its roots as a story about finding an Austrian-style kingdom’s the next leader and the unlikely instructor who helped make it a friendly battle for the throne.