So once again, The Royal Tutor fakes readers out. We don’t get to meet the elusive first prince. But it’s okay! We learn something about Heine. It turns out, before he was a royal tutor, he was…
*drumroll*
A tutor at a church.
But wait, there’s more! Read now, and The Royal Tutor will throw in a second revelation: he’s not one to keep his room organized, letting the books pile up on top of each other!
Yes, The Royal Tutor Volume 6 isn’t full of significant plot points.
That’s not to say this volume is all filler or pointlessness. Leonhard’s chapter certainly is, as his challenge is to pose for a portrait. It’s pure comedy. The final chapter features the four princes teaming up to tackle Heine’s room. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it is adorable to see them work together and how important Heine is to them.
The rest of the volume has a little more progress for the princes. I do love seeing them grow and try to take steps to be the one suited to be king. We’ve already seen them come a long way, and this volume just continues their steps forward. Kai and Bruno start branching out from their lessons at home, so the manga should feature more “outside” episodes like Licht’s adventures at the coffee shop. Bruno’s chapter is probably the most character-driven, as he realizes his knowledge doesn’t do a lot of good if he can’t share it with others and make them understand.
Still, Akai continues to tease readers about the two main mysteries, and the best clue we get is an unseen picture. It’s less focused on Heine’s backstory or the struggle for the throne, and more a male version of “cute girls doing cute things” stories. And it can be absolutely adorable: Leonhard is crushed by the idea that Heine is only with them for money, and while manga-world tends to have a lot of absent parents — particularly distant fathers — it’s a treat to see how much Viktor cares about his sons and vise versa. You could take about any page and just want to give the characters a pat on the back or the head, and it’s really tempting thanks to Akai’s art. Even Heine’s SD form blends in well and isn’t overused to eject readers out of the manga’s historical realism.
I must admit I was very concerned when right at the start of the second chapter, Licht mentions about working at a “caf□”. Fortunately, this isn’t done for every use of the word “café”, but this error was done two more times. Since the manga uses a common font where everything is in all caps, the accent mark on a capital e does look awkward, but a square is a rather glaring error. Again, it’s only three times in the whole volume, but it’s still three very noticeable mistakes that I hope won’t happen again.
While much of the series has been focused on the laughs, this one is focused on the feels: fuzzy, heartwarming family and student-teacher adventures. I was never bored, but I wanted something a little deeper to make the volume feel less episodic. Hopefully, the author isn’t planning on faking out readers yet again when it comes to the fabled Prince Eins, and Volume 7 will push the story forward more than this one did.