By Sunsunsun and Momoco. Released in Japan as “Tokidoki Bosotto Russia-go de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Matthew Rutsohn.
Oh god, store exclusive stories. Let’s try to break it down here: 1) Alya gets hit on and stalks Masachika; 2) Yuki buys otaku merch and stalks Masachika; 3) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 1; 4) Test of courage; 5) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy cat costume; 6) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 2; 7) Alya and Masachika go to a fancy dessert place; 8) Yuki briefly feels guilty for manipulating Alya; 9) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy maid costume; 10) Masachika goes on amusement park rides with Nonoa and deals with her personality; 11) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 3; 12) Watermelon splitting; 13) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy Chinese dress; 14) Alya and Ayano recover from the spicy food debacle; 15) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 4; 16) Maria eats a lot; 17) Alya, under hypnosis, is tricked into wearing a sexy bunny girl costume; 18) Masachika buys priceless antiques but doesn’t realize it; 19) Yuki and Ayano have a water fight; 20) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, part 5; 21) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy gothic lolita costume; 22) Alya, Masachika and Yuki get a fortune reading; 23) Touya and Chisaki are super in love, Part 6; 24) Alya is tricked into wearing a sexy Arabian dancer outfit; 25) Ayano discovers josei maid porn; 26) Chisaki destroys everyone in the athletics competition; 27) Maria is tricked into wearing a sexy bunny girl costume; 27) An anime store employee rants at the cast in his thoughts; 28) The cast play a word game; 29) Masachika dreams about Alya in a sexy succubus costume.
As you may have gathered from the brief descriptions of all of those, a large part of this collection is dedicated to getting Alya into sexy outfits; The art inside the book… and outside the book… is almost entirely devoted to each of the sexy outfits I mentioned above. This series knows its audience, and it’s folks who like big-breasted Russian girls. Though, to be fair, their magnificent asses are also mentioned quite a bit. Yes, I know it feels a bit crass to bring it up in a review, but this is a short story collection, so we can’t develop the characters or have much drama at all. What we’re left with is Alya being a bit tsundere, Yuki and Masachika being otaku-brained, and… well, there are the student council president and vice-president. Who are indeed cute and in love, but the bulk of the gimmicks in the stories are “Chisaki is very, very, very strong”.
That said, there are two original short stories for this collection at the end. In the shorter one, Elena, having a breakdown because people want to live their own lives rather than dedicate them to music, demands they all go to a cat cafe. We get to see how the cats treat the bulk of the cast (they all have trouble, especially Chisaki and Maria) and we get to see the cat version of Alya, who promptly gets into a… erm, catfight… with the real Alya. The second story has the cast, trying to prepare for the athletics festival, going to a hotel pool rented out by the rich Sumire, to see if practicing in a pool might be less exhausting. As you might guess, this is an excuse for some of the most blatant fanservice in the book, including Masachika almost drowning because every time he comes up for air he slams his face into Alya’s crotch by accident. It ends with a heartwarming moment, but again, we’re here for the service.
If you enjoy the Alya series, you’ll enjoy this. If you’re trying to save money, though, there’s nothing here that I think will come up again in later books, unlike Vol. 4.5.