Tags: Action, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Harem, School Life

First, before I get to the review, I’d like to apologise for my absence over the past week and a bit. I’ve been rather busy and have found it difficult to find time to read, thus it has taken me a while to finish a single volume of a series. Secondly, I have some good news, I’m finally going to branch out my reviews and start reviewing Doctor Who audios within the next couple of weeks, so look forward to it! Anyway on to the review.

The Private Tutor Returns to the Academy!

It’s been a while since I last read this series and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I enjoy the series, so I can’t figure out why I’ve been avoiding the second volume for so long.

Nevertheless, the second volume featuring our favourite serial head-patter continues to give us what made the first volume so enjoyable. This time, Allen has returned to the capital where he is forced to become a teacher at his former academy, teaching a classroom that includes his, let’s say… enthusiastic tutoring students.

Alongside his students from the Howard residence, the second volume adds several new members to his head-patting brigade. These include; Lynne, the Leinster’s youngest daughter and aspiring albatross, Stella, Tina’s older sister and president of the student body, and Caren, Allen’s younger sister and a very expressive member of the wolf beastmen. None of these, however, can quite hold a candle to arguably the best character in the series so far and the infamous albatross around Allen’s neck, Lydia.

The interactions between Lydia and Allen are one of the main reasons to read the series. It’s very clear just how close the two have become during their 4 years together, their endless banter and retorts are a constant highlight. Moreover, their battles (more like play fights) are orchestrated so that they never injure or harm each other and form the basis of their communication, especially when it comes to problematic or stressful situations. As an extension, Lydia’s family, the Leinsters, are all colourful characters and are clearly masterminding a situation so that Lydia and Allen end up married to each other.

Prince Gerard is also introduced in this volume, and oh boy is he a piece of work! A definite candidate for long term antagonist, Gerard performs numerous less than princely actions throughout the volume. These range from more minor actions such as bad-mouthing Allen and Lydia’s family to trying to force Lynne’s hand in marriage and unleashing the royal’s holy weapons that could destroy entire towns just to get revenge. The last of these actions culminate in the battle scene of the volume, which gives us a good idea of the power levels of Allen, Tina and Lydia. He’s still alive by the end of the volume, so I expect he’ll be back to cause more mayhem in the volumes to come.

After reading the second volume of Private Tutor, I’m impressed by the way it develops itself from the first volume, opening up the world-building and adding genuinely interesting characters to the roster. Lydia is the overall highlight of the volume and does well to keep Allen on his toes. By the end of the volume, there are several key plot lines opened for further exploration in the upcoming volumes including Stella’s doubt, Allen’s voice and the question of supreme spells, all of which I’m eagerly anticipating ahead of reviewing the next volume, which I promise will come out sooner than this one.