Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

 Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian (時々ボソッとロシア語でデレる隣のアーリャさん) is a romantic comedy based on the light novel series of the same name by SunSunSun.  The first season, comprising of 12 episodes, aired during the Summer of 2024.

    Kuze Masachika is a slacker otaku in his second year of high school.  He has a crush on the girl he sits next to in class, the alluring transfer student Kujou Alisa.  Alya as her family calls her, is half Russian and has returned to Japan after living in Russia for a number of years.  Exotically beautiful with a strong presence, Alya has attracted the attention of many boys in school, but her icy calculating personality keeps them at bay.  She has grown fond of the boy next to her and frequently flirts with him, saying things in Russian.  Little does she suspect, Masahika knows what she's saying and is a bit confused and flustered by it.  As a young child he learned Russian due to a girl he would play with while spending time with his grandfather.  Both characters have feelings for the other but Alya is too embarrassed to pursue them, choosing to tease him instead.  Masachika is uncertain what to make of the things she says to him in Russian, sometimes very open statements.  He knows its too late to tell her he can understand what shes saying, recognizing how devastating it would be to her to find out.  He is unable to determine if shes just messing with him or if there is some truth to what she says.  Either way he is one of the few people in school who can be considered her friend.

    Masachika gets roped into joining the student council, of which both Alya and her older sister Maria, are part of.  He had wanted to avoid it, desiring to slack off as much as possible in high school, but he struggles to outrun his past.  In middle school he was a successful vice-president of the student council, helping the president to win the election, his estranged sister Suou Yuki.  No one knows that Yuki and Masachika are siblings, a thing they keep secret for unknown reasons.  Yuki has a strong brother complex and see's Alya as a rival for his attention, doing everything she can to make the older girl misinterpret their interactions.  When Alya decides to run for student council president it forces Masachika to choose between her and his sister.  Yuki is running as well, looking to continue the success she has in middle school, given that many of the students filtered into this school from that one and know her quite well.  Feeling drawn to the transfer student he has feelings for, he chooses to back Alya instead of Yuki.  The battle lines have been drawn as Masachika faces off against his sister in his effort to help Alya win the election.  The closeness required from him being the campaign manager strengthens whatever bond they had been developing but neither can be honest about their feelings, all of their attention is on the coming battle with Yuki,

    What starts out as a gag premise quickly evolves into something else entirely.  On the surface I was concerned that the appeal of the series would be short lived if it revolved solely on Alya flirting with Masachika in Russian.  Initially I went into the first episode thinking he didn't understand what she was saying.  When you learn he does understand her and is struggling with how to react to her in secret, the series became significantly more interesting.  I was quite content afterwards to watch this fun series about two characters flirting with each other, testing the edges of their confidence.  Of course they will have to deal with outside interference, whether imaginary or intentional and Yuki's presence and deeply disturbing emotions for her bother, does a good job at adding a complex and playable level of conflict.  On top of that Alya's older sister is another obstacle as its implied that she was the Russian girl he liked as a little kid.  I was looking to nbe an enjoyable slice of life romance with some fun characters and a lot of room for story.  I had kep up to date the first month or so and then didn't catch up until the final episode of the season came out.  To say that the tone of the series from episode 6 onward is different may not be completely accurate.  Yet the weeks that had gone by since I had watched the series lent alot of energy to what felt like a drastic change in the story.

    There is a lot of mystery behind Mashicka and his sister and starting with episode 6 the story begins to delve into that and I feel it changed the tone of the story from being fun and carefree to something a bit...pompous.  Their maternal grandfather is the head of a long revered family who holds all of his progeny to strict and calculating standards.  Yuki has a maid servant and Masachika has been disowned from the Suou line, never allowed to talk about his relation to the family.  Hence why no one knows that he and Yuki are siblings.  His own mother even interacts with him as if he was not genetically related to her.  We don't know why he has chosen the path he is on, but he seems to be content with his choice.  So while the first part of the story focus on the flirting and will they won't they aspect of Alya and Masachika, the second half focuses heavily on the upcoming student council election and the complex game they have to play in order to succeed.  There is still an amount of flirting and cute moments but it really drills down onto the complex relationship between the siblings and how all of their current and past interactions might influence the upcoming election.  The first season ends with Alya working to build recognition and acceptance from the student body as Yuki pulls out all of the deep political stunts to ensure her own success.

    I liked the show, but I liked it a lot more when it was stupid and cute.  he whole Masachika and Yuki coming from stuffy aristocracy spun the tone of the series into a different direction, a direction less believable.  A good point of the story, something that helps to carry it over some rough spots, is the complexity of its characters.  While on the surface they all seem one dimensional, you quickly learn that they all use that outward personality as a defensive mechanism and they are far more complex than you first think.  Alya is perhaps the most well developed and multi faceted character in the story, being both the calculating ice queen on the surface, quite a bit of a tsundere.  Yet when shes alone or feelings comfortable she becomes a much more innocent and vulnerable girl, who really is not as adult as people think she is.  The artwork is pretty good in the series, though the designs for the school uniforms screams dating sim game and there is an unnatural amount of attention put into the eyes.  I don't have a foot fetish but this series has made me a bit of a believer in its appeal....

The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll and a second season is pending for a later date.