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.

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.

There was only so long that the main mystery of this series that doesn’t involve “who will the winning girl be” got cleared up. (And honestly, “who will the winning girl be” is not much of a mystery, either – this isn’t the sort of series that’s going for a last-minute swerve.) So yes, Masachika admits to Alya what the relationship between him and Yuki really is, and then goes to visit her. That said, the series still wants to be a romcom, even in what amounts to the most serious volume to date, and so it also flashes to Alya’s POV during these scenes, which amounts to “OMG we’re holding hands no stop I’m comforting him, shut up brain” over and over again. Alya may be a romantic wreck, but thanks to the boy she not-so-secretly loves she’s found a way forward in life. In this book, Masachika also finds a way forward in life, but sadly he manages to botch that in a really bad way.

Yes, that’s Yuki on the cover, only the 2nd person to feature on a cover that isn’t Alya. She’s looking surprisingly serious as well, which fits the tone of this serious volume. After arriving at his sister’s house, and seeing how far Yuki has relapsed, Masachika decides that it’s time he stop running away from everything and has a long chat with his mother about why she started to reject him. Unsurprisingly, the answer turns out to be that they have a lot more in common than they possibly imagined. He then comes to a decision – he’s going to return to the family and become its head, which means Yuki doesn’t have to. He talks with his father about this, who is as easygoing and hands-off as always. He talks to his grandfather about this, who is grumpy but will let him try. He does NOT talk to Yuki about this. That’s where he botches things.

Of course, not all the upcoming chaos is going to be caused by Masachika. Nonoa still exists, of course. I’ve talked before about how much I appreciate her role in this, and I still do. I really liked her showing up late to “comfort” Masachika, and being genuinely a bit annoyed at Alya for getting there first. Which leads to what she does best, making Alya doubt Masachika. She frames things she found out by coincidence – which she freely admits – as if Alya ended up being the last to find out, and this plants seeds that I’m sure will extend this series into at least three to four more books. She’s also seemingly working on Ayano, and I have a sneaking suspicion that will be Nonoa’s downfall. Don’t try to outplot the woman who freely tells Masachika he makes her womb tremble.

I also did not mention Yuki’s complete meltdown when she hears what happened, or her heart-to-heart with Alya, where we realizing just how much all the incest subtext we love (OK, everyone but me loves) is an act – ALL of it. Basically, the next volume promises to be filled with a lot of repressed rage and tension…..short story volume? (checks) Oooh, differently numbered short story volume! So may be 10, may be BTS, which I assume stands for Behind The Scenes rather than a crossover with the KPop band.

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.

I’ve talked many times before about the stark contrast between the backstory of Masachika and Yuki and their family drama, the romantic plots with Alya and Maria both being in love with Masachika, and the wacky comedy shenanigans. The drama gets more attention this volume, and the shenanigans are confined to the middle of the book for the most part, and almost feel perfunctory. They read like the author watched a random anime and used that plot as the antics of the book. When I say “there’s a party with chocolates that have a small bit of alcohol in them”, the average fan could write the rest of that scene in their head and be 100% accurate except that it’s only one girl who gets drunk, not all of them. And there’s also an invented game that involves penalties, but since we already had the sexy antics earlier, these punishments are more just silly. The drama, though, is the main reason to get this.

The festival is over, but the aftermath of its events are still reverberating. Masachika’s mother was ill after his performance and had to go to the nurse’s office… and what’s more, Masachika found his father comforting her! Oh, and she’s also now sleepwalking. Masachika himself is filled with all-new self-loathing about his piano playing, which briefly impacts his ability to play until he gets some good advice which is basically “stop overthinking everything you do”. Oh, if only that advice would stick. As for Alya, well, she’s admitted that she’s in love with Masachika, at least to herself, and is briefly really, really happy. Can’t have that, of course. Enter Nonoa, who levels up here from minor supporting character to possibly the main antagonist of the entire series.

The big news here comes right at the cliffhanger for the book – Masachika is finally going to admit the truth about him and Yuki to Alya. This is good, because after overhearing him saying that Yuki will always be the most important person in his life, Alya has spent most of the volume dealing with agonizing unrequited love issues. These two are, frankly, very similar, which is why they’re such a good couple – or at least they will be, eventually, when the series is allowed to end. As for Yuki, she gets less to do here, but is also part of the cliffhanger. I’m not sure if her relapse will last longer than the next book, but it’s a reminder that she’s just as tied into the dark backstory as her brother, and is not simply about being a tease and making incest jokes. There is also a lot of Maria, of course, but even though she’s clearly deeply in love with Masachika, all her plots here are comedic. We know what that means.

And then there’s Nonoa, but let’s save her for another time. Till then, I enjoy wading through the most predictable comedy ever to get to the good bits.