Don't look up my skirt!
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
The first two episodes are now streaming on Crunchyroll. Subsequent episodes will debut every Wednesday.
Even though I started out with the idea to be comprehensive in seeing and reviewing every new show that is debuting this summer, I've realized that's far beyond my personal capacity. So, some of these articles will just be brief reports on the shows that I've sampled, rather than episode reviews.
In that spirit, I watched the first two episodes of a series that only occasionally rang my bell, the tale of a titular high school girl, who is half-Russian, and her flailing efforts to disguise her linguistic abilities under a cloud of coolness, not knowing that her potential love interest, Kuze, can understand her Russian.
The show's premise is that she only sometimes hides her feelings by speaking Russian, and she does that quite intentionally to disguise her obvious affection for Kuze. The humor feels quite stale, and the characters are cardboard figures. The show also dives into offensively low-taste humor, as shown in a clip from Episode 1, embedded below, and indulged in further fanservice with panty shots in Episode 2, so I have no interest in watching more.
Even so, I must pay kudos to the show for the funniest scene I've seen yet in the nine shows I've sampled so far. Alya, Kuze, and Kuze's similar-aged sister -- whose relationship to her brother the siblings keep secret from their classmates, for some mysterious, unfathomable reason -- head out for a meal to a ramen restaurant known for its super spicy ramen, Hell's Cauldron. What neither Alya nor Kuze know is that Kuze's sister has intentionally chosen a place to bring the high-falutin Alya down a peg or three.
The result is worthy of notice. I've only been able to find a trailer with Spanish subtitles so far, but I don't think you need to be able to read them to see how funny it is. Enjoy!
Summary: As a whole? Skip it.