The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter

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After failing the final exam for his dream job at the royal court, promising young sorcerer Allen wants nothing more than to retreat to a simple life in the countryside. Unfortunately for him, he can't even afford the train fare. His only solution is to get a job, but his one lead is anything but modest—Duke Howard, one of the kingdom's most powerful nobles, needs a private tutor for his daughter Tina. Despite her academic brilliance, Tina is incapable of casting even a single spell. To make matters worse, entrance exams for the prestigious Royal Academy are fast approaching, and magical aptitude is mandatory.

Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter is based on the light novel series by author Riku Nanano and illustrator cura. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

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Episode 2
Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

I appreciate the realism on display in this episode. Sure, this is a fantastical world of magic, knights, and kings, but when I speak of realism, I mean in how the central problem is being tackled. Despite seemingly doing everything right, Tina can't cast magic. There's got to be a problem somewhere, so how do you find it? The answer is both simple and monotonous: you change every possible variable one by one and see what happens.

This means that first Allen cycles through the various types of magic and then through different spells in each element. After that, he looks back at older spells and techniques—testing them day by day, one after the other. What we learn from all this is that, while the spells still refuse to activate, Tina is getting better at casting them. So what is her block? Even by the end of the episode, we still have no answer.

On one level, I get it. We're supposed to be just as frustrated as Tina is by her lack of progress. But that doesn't change the fact that the plot has been in a holding pattern for two full episodes. We've spent an hour with the girl, and she's no closer to using magic than when she started—in fact, she may be further from it, given her emotional mana explosion in the episode's closing moments.

Adding to this frustration is the fact that we're given a specific piece of information midway through the episode: Allen knows a way to get her to cast magic. He's just been banned from using it. However, that makes it a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. It's now just a matter of waiting till he uses that path anyway. It makes the story feel like even more of a slog because we know what's eventually going to happen.

The episode tries to keep things interesting by having Allen interact with Ellie's family and Ellie herself, but her story is far from captivating. It's rather one-note. The most important thing it shows is that emotional state and self-confidence have a large effect on one's ability to cast magic, which in turn leads to the aforementioned mana explosion that serves as the episode's cliffhanger.

All in all, there's just not enough here to keep me watching weekly. The payoff is just too long in coming. That said, I wouldn't be adverse to reviewing the whole series when I can marathon it at the end of the season.

Episode 1
Rating:

I'll be the first to admit that this anime is average on many levels. It's got animation that doesn't look bad nor fantastic, music that's forgettable but does its job, a fantasy world similar to many others (yet without a game-like magic system, which is a plus), and characters that fit into the same classic archetypes we've seen before. Even the plot, a magic teacher helping students overcome their issues, both in magic and in their greater lives, is hardly anything new. But while it's average, it's also my kind of average.

What hooks me with this episode is the subtle background mystery. It's introduced in the first scene of the anime, and we constantly get new clues to fuel our speculation throughout the episode. This mystery is, of course, why Allen failed the court sorcerer's exam.

It's established right away that Allen is a talented magic user—after all, his teacher is not only also baffled by his failure but has no problems recommending Allen for a job with one of the five most powerful people in the Kingdom. The whole situation seems like a setup—like the professor caused Allen to fail specifically so he would take this job.

But as the episode goes on, this appears to be a red herring. Allen seems perfectly content teaching a duke's daughter and her maid magic. He's respectful and kind—seemingly unbothered by his failure on the test. He's also proficient at magic that seems impressively difficult even to those knowledgeable about the subject. All this implies that he failed the test on purpose.

From there, we are left with the next logical question: “Why?” Why would Allen purposely fail the test to get one of the best jobs in the kingdom? The answer is Lydia. He refers to her as “the albatross across my neck,” and from his other comments, we see that he has been forcibly tied to her for years. This is not because of any personal affection, mind you, but because he alone seems to be able to put up with her rotten personality. The trick is, however, that she has graduated while he has not. Thus, by keeping himself from graduating (by failing the test), he is able to stay away from her. Going to the north of the country for a job until spring is simply a bonus.

What's great about all this is how it is conveyed to us. Very little is ever stated outright. It's mostly given piecemeal through dialogue in passing and is left for the viewer to put it all together. This is the kind of storytelling I personally enjoy. And with the subsequent mysteries of why Tina is unable to use magic and what it is about Lydia that makes her so insufferable, I can see myself enjoying this series in the coming weeks.

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Episode 2
Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

There are two major questions still unanswered as of this episode, one we're meant to find frustrating and another that's very much a me problem. That is, of course, how those books in the greenhouse survive. The other is what is keeping Tina's spells from activating, an issue that's driving poor Allen to distraction as he attempts to be a good teacher. Ellie may be annoying, but at least she's making notable progress in her studies. Tina is earnest and clearly trying her level best, but with no results. It's hardly surprising that she snaps at the end.

That's not quite enough to make up for the stultifying nature of the rest of the episode. While I appreciate the fact that we're being given a front row seat to Allen's exertions as a teacher, working his best to reach his student and help her succeed, it's not terribly interesting. The stakes don't feel high enough. Yes, Tina's father still wants Allen to dissuade his daughter from enrolling at the magic academy, although his interest in that is at least as much wrapped up in keeping her from humiliation as the scion of a prestigious magical family. I think he's more concerned about her being harassed, but I can't discount the possibility that he's also worried about the family reputation.

Tina almost certainly knows about her father's doubts. That makes me wonder if her magical block isn't partially self-imposed, especially since it's her emotional meltdown at the end of this episode that breaks through. It may be a mental addition to a slower-than-expected magical awakening, and one that's had an outsize impact on her development. As Allen notes, there's no real reason why she shouldn't be casting spells, at least not an academic one that he can find.

This does indicate that the plot may be getting ready to pick up, but after two episodes of checking how much time was left roughly every three minutes, I can't muster up any enthusiasm to find out. While none of the animation is as rough as that walk cycle in the ending theme, it's also not gorgeous enough to make up for flaws in the story, and I simply can't find anything particularly engaging. Viewers with more patience than me, however, may find that this is worth giving a third episode to see what comes of Tina's icy explosion.

Episode 1
Rating:

I've always hated the old saw that “those who can't do, teach,” which perhaps hasn't disposed me to look kindly upon Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter. Allen has failed to graduate from the prestigious national magic school, but despite that, he's sent by his professor to tutor the daughter of Duke Howard, one of the premier mages in the kingdom. Of course, what Allen's not told is that his job is to ensure that the magically-talentless Tina doesn't go to the academy, but as this first episode demonstrates, it isn't likely to happen. That's because both Allen and Tina are undoubtedly special in that way that only protagonists are…even if, at this point, we're only being told that repeatedly rather than shown it.

While it is the job of a first episode to set up the story to come, this one takes that job a bit too literally. Much of this is simply an introduction to Allen and his job, as well as his two students, along with some background information about the kingdom and its magic system. A large part of the problem is that none of these are exciting. Allen has the personality of an ear of corn, her jealousy and lack of magic define Tina, and Ellie (the maid Allen is also supposed to teach, in a surprise announcement) is characterized by an entirely squeaky voice and preternatural clumsiness.. There's no reason to be interested in them at all, and the world, while it has a few interesting bits and pieces, such as the four dukes and their role, isn't much better.

Still, credit where it's due, there are some very nice uses of speaking glances and other nonverbal communication. The look Allen exchanges with Tina's father when she tells him to call her by her first name is well done, and it shows that Allen is taking his job seriously. He seems to have come by it honestly, as he spent a lot of time with another ducal heir, Lydia, as the only person who could handle her. That's decent enough worldbuilding, even if Lydia's appearance at the end of the episode makes me worry that she'll bring us up to a trifecta of annoying girls to fawn over Allen.

And really, that's the problem here. When it's not dull, it's irritating, and that's not a great combination. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than my reaction to both manga and light novel (which was just that they were interminably boring), but the result is the same. This isn't entirely without promise, but that potential is deeply buried to the point where my main takeaway from the episode was, “But how do those books in Tina's greenhouse library withstand the damp heat?”

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Episode 2
James Beckett
Rating:

This was a tough one to get through. The premiere of The Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter at least had the benefit of being the introduction to the story, so there was stuff I had to pay attention to to understand what was even going on. This time, though, there is not even that baseline degree of narrative interest to grasp on to. Now, all we have is the educational routine that Allen has worked out for Ellie and Tina. This includes lectures, magical practice sessions, more lectures, some pep talks, and the occasional break for the girls to do their cutesy-poo moe-moe routine. This involves a lot of the two squealing “Kawaiiiiii!” in unison, in case you were curious.

So, as you can expect, this was an ungodly boring half-hour of anime. The main issue, of course, is the fact that the conflict in this story is limited to nothing more engaging than “One of the girls can't cast spells, but don't worry, it will definitely work out before too long.” The plot exists less as a means to tell a genuinely interesting story than to contrive excuses for one or both of the two girls Allen is teaching to act overly friendly, vulnerable, and sweet to him. Never mind the fact that it is hard for me to find that sort of pandering as anything other than kind of gross; it simply makes for lame television!

I could maybe get behind the show a little more if any effort were put into its direction. Still, a lot of the show's fatiguing blandness comes from its refusal to commit any more effort to any given scene than is absolutely necessary to get the point across. I'd bet that at least fifty percent of the shots in this episode are just close-ups of people's faces as they talk to each other, with another thirty percent being devoted to medium shots of people's upper torsos and a little bit of the background as they talk to each other. It's the very definition of lifeless animation.

If you are the kind of person that can get really invested in the magical systems of a fantasy setting, I can imagine The Private Tutor being a fractionally more entertaining experience, but we've still got much better shows this season going for you even if all you care about is spell formulas and academic hierarchies. Don't just settle for a cartoon as mediocre as this one if you can help it. It will only result in more of them being made.

Episode 1
Rating:

Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter is one of those anime that feels less like an organic work of art birthed from the passion of its creators and more like some kind of government psyop. It's like, somewhere in the subterranean depths of Japan's secret tunnel network, a horde of faceless scientists and agents have been gathered around a crew of withering artists and forcing them to make cartoons that are so boring, and so utterly devoid of any discernable personality or charm, that they can be used to erase a subject's memory and put them into a suggestible trance. Be on the lookout for my upcoming book of investigative journalism, Go Beyond! Plus MKUltra! for more insights into these nefarious schemes.

I will try to give Private Tutor some credit where it is due. It isn't quite as mind-rottingly bland as the worst of the last decade's isekai-slop; the setting here is more inspired by the aesthetics of the Industrial Revolution and the Edwardian Period than anything you'd find in a bargain-bin Elder Scrolls ripoff, which is something. The show's aesthetics are also perfectly fine. The character designs are cute, the colors are bright enough to draw the eye, and the music doesn't contain any incessant overuse of the recorder. These are all qualities that made it possible for me to tolerate Private Tutor's first episode, if not enjoy it.

Here's the thing: For as much as I tend to rag on anime that can't be bothered to put even one iota of effort into their worldbuilding, aesthetic design, or use of cinematic language, any anime worth a damn could overcome any or even all of those shortcomings with a great story and an interesting cast of characters. That is where anime like Private Tutor fail on a much more terminal level. Allen is a complete cipher of a protagonist, as so many of his ilk are, and none of the supporting characters possesses enough vivacity in their own right to make up for the black hole of a personality that Allen proves to be. Tina and Ellie are not individual human characters that we are meant to empathize with and be interested in. They are acrylic figurine collectibles that have been given just enough life in this television show so as to justify the cost of production and make a return on investment. Their cuteness is artificial and cloying in the worst of ways.

Like I said up top, there isn't anything of substance to latch on to with this one, and that makes it an unfathomably boring cartoon to sit through. The characters don't work, there is hardly anything resembling a story to propel things along, and nearly every other scene is just exposition dump after exposition dump. You could technically do a lot worse than Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter, given how dire a lot of these new releases end up being, but you can (and should!) set your standards so much higher.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.