English Dub Review: Royal Tutor “The Royal Tutor Arrives”

Royal Class is now in session!

Spoilers Below

The opening begins with a narration explaining that a “Royal Tutor” is a special tutor that’s carefully selected for the task of teaching young royalty, and it’s a title given only to the “best teachers in the nation” and it’s where we meet our protagonist “Heine Wittgenstein”. Heine has been called to the kingdom of “Grannzreich” to take on the role as the titular Royal Tutor. He’s been ordered to raise a worthy successor to the throne. While the King’s letter to Heine establishes that he has “one princess and five prince’s”, Heine is only assigned to deal with the “four” sibling princes.

Much like Saitama from One Punch Man, Heine as a character seemingly embodies the timeless phrase “appearances can be deceiving” because while Heine is legally a full-grown adult, his appearance and height are often mistaken for a child which frequently makes complete strangers underestimate him. For example, when Heine attempts to enter the palace gates the royal guards dickishly keep him from entering the castle because they think Heine’s credentials are is bullshit until the Queen recognizes him which leaves the guards comedically flabbergasted.

When we first meet the princes, Heine learns that their names are “Leonhard” who immediately shows contempt for Heine because he’s a “Commoner”, “Licht” is the lighthearted, goofy one who’s extremely vain, “Bruno” who’s the “know it all” and feels Heine’s purpose here is a waste of time and finally “Kai” who we know nothing about because he barely speaks a single coherent word and stares in a cold gaze. In further preparation for their lesson plan’s, Heine asks to interview them individually, but all four princes have low expectations since the previous tutors all ran away from the job that Heine has now decided to take but Heine is determined to fulfill his duties.

The rest of the episode is spent on Prince Leonhard and he’s interviewed first. Of course, Leonhard continues to be resistant to Heine and then you start to see why as he begins to open up. It turns out Leonhard keeps a diary that documents mostly his regrets & failures and often runs away from his problems rather than confronting them which paints Leonhard as a prince who hides his petty insecurities with a prideful front. After tricking Leonhard into taking a test by threatening to read his diary out loud, Heine explains to Leonhard that he’s instructed to give “equal attention” to all four of them once they’re all assembled. Afterward, Leonhard ponders why Heine didn’t bully him after reading his diary and Heine has the maid anonymously bring Leonhard his favorite cake as his way of rewarding him for doing the test. The episode ends in cliffhanger fashion when Heine decides to interview Bruno next.

Our Take

For a first episode, Royal Tutor had a lot of ground to cover but it’s surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be. The interactions between Heine and the other princes so far leave a lasting impression but the slow pacing seems to be it’s only big flaw. I have a feeling that each episode will be devoted to a different prince before we eventually get to know Heine himself since his backstory is also quite a mystery.