Wow this thread has been getting dusty.
So I read the manga Assassin's Pride and it was interesting enough for me to get a jp kindle account and start the light novels. Currently I'm on the 2nd book.
And I have to say I like it I do. It starts off by introducing the heroine who lives in a world of magic, where nobles are the only ones with magic. But she can't use magic and there's a growing rumor spreading in the under world that she's an illegitimate child. The MC is an assassin dispatched as her home tutor to determine if she is and kill her if so (because politics, her father is in a very influential position).
It goes on to show the first day of the MC's new job observing the heroine and it's absolutely miserable for her. It does a really good job of making you sympathize for her. And even the MC feels so sorry for her terrible life (of getting bullied at school, being unable to make any results and being beaten so one sidedly all the time) that he decides to kill her that same night out of mercy. He doesn't, obviously, but ends up putting himself in a very precarious position. Go read it yourself.
I feel like there's even a lot of thought put into the setting for a story of this kind, you know, what with the extremely low standards that light novels sets the bar at. It's good and I like it but there are some issues I have with it. The biggest one being that she's only 13 and the novels go into some creepy ass descriptions sometimes when describing her body. Like god, is this necessary? It's especially creepy because the MC is 17 and it so teeters on pedophillic, these descriptions. If the author stopped this, then I would have almost no complaint like complaints. Because everything else is handled so well! I almost feel like the publisher is forcing them to include some of these things because it's so out of place. These problems don't show up in the manga, obviously.
Hope it gets an anime sometime.
edit: I have finished reading all the published volumes (1-7 + one extra side stories volume) for this, Assassin's Pride. It's a bit unfortunate. I think the author is good at storytelling, I'm always curious about what'll happen next. It flows smoothly and even though it jumps around characters sometimes, it's not frustrating leaps between viewpoints that completely break the pace like Durarara or the Kumo Desu ga novelization. This author, they have a talent for storytelling. But they're also trapped in some of the stupid ass conventions of "light novel shenanigans", mainly the aforementioned uncomfortable sexual "fanservice" moments. Like seriously, take them out and this will be good without question. The last volume, volume 7, had a particularly terrible one that I don't even feel like talking about. If this ever gets an anime (and I hope it does), please, please take them out or tone them down a lot.
Then there is one other thing I don't like, which is the harem direction that the relationships between the main cast of girls seems to be taking with the MC. There's only one I care about, which is the sweet relationship that the MC and the heroine have, the rest I don't care for. Someone once said that power has to be distributed carefully among characters in a story and I feel like the same works with romance. When you spread romance too thinly, it drops the quality for every character involved in it. It's annoying that the relationship between the MC and the heroine gets watered down by her having 3 other 'extras' that are also clamouring for attention from the MC.
But the thing is, I'm invested enough in the characters and the story that I can understand and almost accept why these other 3 girls like the MC so much. It makes sense, these girls are from nobility and attend all-girls academies and the one male they know is very cool and strong. Like, of course they would form a crush on him. I understand it but it dilutes the relationship between the MC and the heroine because the story doesn't seem to give any indication of the harem status being resolved any time soon. And sometime somewhere we got stuck in this romantic gaga stage of the relationship when I feel like there's still a lot of exploring that can be done between the MC and heroine's teacher-pupil dynamic.
There's still a couple of other things that are kinda dumb but I can accept as being 'diagetic' too, because I'm invested in the characters and story and view them as being legitimate characters (and not cheap light novel standard trite cliche sitcom cardboard cutouts). A good example being Myul, the most likable 'harem' member besides the heroine, whose shtick is being seductive which is kind of creepy for a 13/14 year old but I can accept as being a part of who she is. It works (just barely. Well to explain, it's made very clear that she has no idea what she's really doing or of the actual affect it may have on people--males--and that she's actually just a massive bookworm who is naive about things. It works,) and I can accept it. Again, because I'm invested in the cast.
The heroine is legitimately cool and its great to read along and try to cheer her on. Her fights are the best and they're done really well. Everything she does feels like a great accomplishment and worthy of celebration considering where she started from. The effect starts to wear off a bit but not a whole lot, the author does a whelmful job of making sure that the story doesn't keep hanging off of the same premise and get tiring. The earlier volumes are the better ones, I think volume 2 was the best, followed closely by 1, then the others in no particular order. The others are held back by being either pretty uninteresting in hindsight of the story, not particularly advancing the character relationships, or not having a good battle. But it's worthy of credit to the author that even these other ones still have at least one or two of the three things so that I have a difficult time sorting them. Volumes 2 and 1 are great for having all three.
tldr; good storytelling with memorable characters and good fight scenes that is held back but not crippled by some light novel shenanigans.