Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

Watch it on: Crunchyroll

I’m always looking out for the next great rom-com anime whenever a new season drops its lineup. In the past we’ve gotten the likes of Kaguya-sama: Love is War or last years’ Skip and Loafer. Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian isn’t quite on that level yet, but I’m cautiously optimistic that it could be after a few more episodes.

Alya is a straight-laced student council member constantly berating Kuze for his antics, but she does find him cute and secretly says as much…in Russian. Of course, Kuze understands Russian and can’t find a way to tell Alya that he’s been able to understand her confessions all this time. What ensues in the first couple of episodes is a cute and combative relationship between the two. So far the duo have great chemistry, which is essential to success, but I’m still waiting for the show to be more than the typical genre trappings. There is a fanservice-y moment in the premiere that made me roll my eyes, but Alya and Kuze have unexpectedly serious discussion about it immediately after. If we are lucky this won’t devolve into pure fanservice and instead move past genre tropes to be something special.