4/17 Listening

Anime: Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine (The Royal Tutor)

This is one of my favorite anime! I had watched it when it first came out back in high school. I watched the whole season and the movie. Not too many people know about this anime but it's highly recommended by me! It's only 12 episodes and has equal comedy and drama for it to be a historical fiction anime. I decided to rewatch it this weekend because I was feeling nostalgic. It's basically about this man named Heine who is short and looks like a child, but is actually a grown man who's good at everything. He was sent by the king to teach his 4 sons equally and prepare them for the throne. Each son has a complex personality and some triggering past experience that Heine is able to understand and help them work through things that none of their other tutors did for them. They like Heine, but don't truly know anything about him or his past because the king kept it hidden. (Spoiler Alert!) Turns out, the king and Heine knew each other from when they were younger. Heine was homeless and cared for other homeless kids and the king became friends with him and the other kids when he would sneak out of the palace. An incident happened where the king got shot and Heine was wrongfully persecuted, and Heine ended up turning his life around after the king rescued him from prison.(Spoiler Done.) When Heine's history is found out by the princes, he leaves, but the princes fight for him to come back when they plead his case to the council. It's so much that happens in just 12 episodes! As for the connection to my Japanese learning, it was good to see a teacher to student representation in anime because it reminds me of the dialogue and speech from sensei in class. There were a lot of words and phrases that I recognized since Heine uses polite speech and phrases that I hear from sensei in Japanese class. Words that came up a lot: べんきょう, 来る, じゅぎょう, 二人, みなさん, はじめましょう、etc.