Alright. I don’t think it takes Sherlock Holmes to be able to read the signs that Alya’s sister is actually the girl that Masachika talked with as a kid. Let’s look at the signs:

• Looking at her locket of Sa-kun, we see a picture of a kid whose face is obscured by glare, but whose hair looks suspiciously Masachika-like (also sa is one of the kana used in his name, so sa-kun very well could have been a Russian-style nickname like Alya is)

• When she meets Masachika for the first time this episode, her brain stops functioning for a bit as he clearly was recognizable to her in some way.
• When she hugged him in the tea store, it sparked a nostalgic, comforting feeling in Masachika.

This is setting up to be a love triangle with a pair of sisters. Also, this airs on the same day of the week as that other show that features a love triangle with a pair of sisters. Coinicidence? I think not!

Anyway, we got some more background on how Suou and Masachika ended up separated. Still not sure why they are keeping their familial relationship a secret, but we might get there before too long. Also of note this episode, the fan service was completely absent compared to the past two.

@rikka@ani.social

Yay no fan service. Just pure diabetes. I’m happi

It’s the subtle moments that I think really pull the show together. When Masha meets Kuze you can see the moment her brain goes from “this is my future brother in law so I should make friends with him” to “oh no, this is my longlost childhood friend / first love”, and we never get any exposition explaining it, nor do we get any when she test him by speaking russian to him. Beautiful storytelling.

I’m honestly really sad for Masha. It’s clear she’s going to ultimately lose the love triangle, and I think she already knows that. The Sa-kun she was in love with is in the past, and while there are still some lingering feelings between them, they don’t have a connection anymore like Kuze does with Alya. And Masha seems like she understands that doing anything other than letting those feelings go and moving on would ultimately do more damage to her sister and their relationship than it would do any good for herself or Kuze. But maybe that’s just me reading into things a little and we’ll end up with another mess like over in the other sister love triangle anime, lol.