Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian can be a fun tsundere sort of love story, and the first volume of the manga showed how well handled that adaptation is. Now that the second is here, it does two things really well. The first is that it establishes why Alisa (Alya) Mikhailovna Kujou started to like Masachika Kuze. But the other part is that it helps illustrate what’s a genuinely valuable life lesson about workloads and associating with other people.
Editor’s Note: There will be spoilers for early parts of the second volume of the Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian manga below.
The end of the first volume of the Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian manga kicked off a flashback showing how Alya and Masachika met. Well, in that volume it mainly established that people never really connected to Alya and put her on a pedestal because of her appearance, excelling in school, and talents. It seems like that is about to happen at her new school, but she finds Masachika is the first person who’s nonplussed about her. He isn’t fawning over her or showing extra attention. He’s even lackadaisical about daily things. She’s shocked, but then figures it’s just how he is.
It’s when the school festival and haunted house come up that we start to see exactly when Alya realizes the kind of person Masachika really is and we see both her and anyone reading get a valuable life lesson. Because everyone sort of sees Alya as an “other” or being “better,” people aren’t working together like they were supposed to in order to make the haunted house happen. Nothing is getting done. People are ditching her, leaving her to handle it all alone. It’s then that Masachika comes in and realizes she’d be there, then tells acknowledges how she’s working hard and always doing her best, but isn’t doing it in the right way. Instead, it’s in a manner that will leave her burnt out and alone.
After confronting Alya with that, Masachika shows her that he’d already secured a permit to use the school’s boarding house. He brings up how an overnight experience will bring everyone together, ensure everyone’s schedule is considered, and make it feel fun. He also worked with the craft club to ease her burden too. She realizes he’s more than he seems. He’s more considerate and observant than she expected, and she misjudged him.
But at the same time, it’s such an important lesson for all of us reading too. It’s so easy to fall into a trap of doing things and taking on too much alone so you know it both gets done and gets done right. But it emphasizes how while that can work, it isn’t healthy and might lead to impossible situations. It brings up the idea of relying on someone, even just one other person. It shows how communication and interacting with another person matters.
Of course, the rest of volume of the Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian manga is filled with cute moments and points at which Alya is being kind to Masachika or showing an interest, but in a secretive or tsundere way. And we also see how he’s being considerate of her or reciprocating those feelings. But I really took away that message from this installment, as well as the insight into how things got started between the two.
Volume 2 of Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian is available now, and Yen Press will release the third volume of the manga on April 28, 2026. The company also handles the light novel in English. The anime is available on Crunchyroll.