- Title (English): Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
- Title (Japanese): 時々ボソッとロシア語でデレる隣のアーリャさん (Tokidoki Bosotto Russia-go de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san)
- Year: 2024
- Studio: Doga Kobo
- No. of Episodes: 12
- Streaming: Crunchyroll
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian is a romcom anime revolving around the titular Alisa “Alya” Mikhailovna Kujo (Sumire Uesaka), a popular half-Russian and half-Japanese girl who works diligently as her high school’s student council treasurer. Sitting next to her in class is her unmotivated and carefree friend, Masachika Kuze (Kōhei Amasaki). While Alya is annoyed with Masachika’s lazy lifestyle, she secretly has feelings towards him and she often likes to throw in a flirtatious line in Russian to mess with him. Unbeknown to her however, Masachika is fairly fluent in Russian, having learned it in the past to speak to a Russian girl he liked. When Alya announces plans to run for student council president, Masachika decides to join the council and help her as her running mate. This pits the two against Yuki Suou (Wakana Maruoka), the student council’s public relations officer and Masachika’s younger sister. Due to a complicated family matter, Masahika and Yuki are forced to hide their familial relation and instead claim they are childhood friends.
The show’s leading duo are quite charming. Alya is admittedly an archetypical tsundere but thanks to her perceived language barrier with Masachika, she has this distinct ability to quickly and seamlessly alternate between being tsun tsun and being dere dere. It’s often a lot of fun seeing her shift between these modes and the shenanigans she inadvertently causes because of it. Masachika meanwhile is a surprisingly dynamic character. While usually lazy and carefree, he is actually quite intelligent and he can be quite reliable when the situation calls for it. This becomes increasingly apparent as he joins the student council and helps Alya with the student council election. Also, despite usually being the comedic POV character, Masachika actually has an elaborate backstory. Throughout the show, you gets snippets about his complicated family situation and the estranged relationships that have come out of it. It gets so interesting that I wish there was more time in the first season to explore it. Probably my favorite part to the two main characters is that there is a more serious and genuinely heartwarming origin to their attraction to one another. It’s not just explained with something as simple as opposites attracts. While the show mostly builds their relationship with some laughs, it’s that dramatic backbone that really makes it feel romantic.
I do find it dumb that Masachika keeps his bilingualism a secret. The show’s only justification for this decision is that Masachika would rather not make things awkward with Alya. Understandable but it can easily be argued that Alya’s reaction would only get worse the longer he holds it off. I do however give this conceit a pass because it is quite charming. It would’ve been so easy to have Masachika be oblivious and have that be the punchline. It’s much more entertaining that Alya tries to sneak in a flirt by speaking in Russian, only for Masachika to read her like an open book. The language gimmick certainly elevates some jokes that otherwise would fall flat. For example, there’s a scene in Episode 1 where Alya makes Masachika put new thigh highs on her legs and to her shock, Masachika follows through with the request. This leads to Masachika accidentally getting a peak at Alya’s panties. On one hand, it is a predictable and typical excuse to give the viewer some fanservice (and boy is there a bunch of that in this show). Conversely, it is funny that Masachika catches Alya’s bluff thanks to his fluency in Russian and he decides to go all in because that technically is what Alya requested.
Being Alya’s main rival and Masachika’s younger sister, Yuki is arguably the third most prominent character and her presence in the plot frankly comes with mixed results. At the start of the show, Yuki presents herself as a polite and diligent girl but it’s quickly revealed that when she’s alone with Masachika, she instead displays a hidden personality where she’s a brother obsessed otaku. As Alya begins to gain momentum in the election, Yuki proves to be more cunning and manipulative than she initially lets on. On one hand, all of these sides to Yuki makes her a wild card that keeps the story engaging and a gremlin who can provide some good laughs. And to Wakana Maruoka’s credit, she does a dang good job capturing all sides to her character.
That said, I can’t stand Yuki’s brocon side, which heavily borders on incestuous. It’s just plain weird and save for one meme-worthy line of dialogue, I don’t find it the least bit funny. I somewhat get the impression that she’s mostly doing a bit and she just has brainrot from all the otaku stuff but even if that’s true, it then feels like the show is having its cake and eating it too. It’s a shame because Yuki and Masachika’s relationship can get pretty interesting, what with Masachika genuinely caring about his sister (in the normal way of course) despite their family’s situation and choosing to help Alya over her. There’s also some entertaining mind games the siblings play against each other as the election rages on, complete with some amazing monologues from Yuki.
There are some other supporting characters in the show though they can be hit or miss. Alya has an older sister named Maria (Yukiyo Fujii), who goes by the nickname Masha and works as the student council secretary. The show implies that there is some sort of prior connection between her and Masachika. However, this thread is left hanging so all Masha does in this season is act cute and caring. I don’t deny that she can be charming but I really want to know what her actual deal is. Halfway through the show, Yuki is accompanied by her aide and running mate Ayano Kimishima (Saya Aizawa). While Ayano can be annoying with how loyal she is to Yuki, she does have one or two moments that got me good. Some more minor characters that stood out to me are Sayaka Taniyama (Ikumi Hasegawa) and Nonoa Miyamae (Yoshino Aoyama), Alya and Masachika’s first opponents in the election. These two put up a decent “fight” against the leading duo and there’s something interesting about Nonoa’s self-deprecating view on herself. What’s frustrating then is that the season’s final stretch establishes a potentially interesting direction to go with those two, only to then write it off a few minutes later.
Obviously, this is the first season of the show so the story is left unfinished by the finale. Without spoiling too much, the whole election plot is left unresolved and the show makes little progress regarding Masachika’s family troubles. And as mentioned earlier, the mystery surrounding Masha is put aside far too quickly for my liking. I did expect the show to play the long game with those but the point still stands, Alya currently feels incomplete. For what it’s worth, Season 1 does pick a solid point in the story to stop at.
Being a Doga Kobo anime, Alya features some pretty high production quality. Admittedly, the fanciest animation only occurs in the OP but there are a couple of evocative shots in the episodes themselves and I’m hard pressed to think of a scene that’s badly animated. Perhaps my favorite part of the production is every episode having its own ED, all of which are covers sung by Alya’s voice actor, Sumire Uesaka. That adds some excitement to reaching the end of an episode and the list has some solid inclusions (my favorite is the ninth episode’s).
Alya‘s first season isn’t perfect. It can be a bit frustrating at times, the most egregious element of course being Yuki trying to flirt with her brother. What carried the show for me is the developing romance between the two main characters. Not only are Alya and Masachika funny together, their relationship genuinely has some weight to it and there’s some really interesting stuff going on with Masachika. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t grow invested in seeing their story unfold. They certainly got me to enjoy the show enough that I’ll watch the upcoming second season once it airs.
Score: 7/10
Pros (+): Cute gimmick; Alya and Masachika make a charming and riveting couple; fairly effective comedy with some surprising dramatic elements.
Cons (-): Have to contend with Yuki’s weird and obnoxious adoration for her brother; somewhat weak supporting cast in general.
Xenodude Scribbles 