Alice in Cyberland · review
This ova being subbed is such a dangerous double edged sword for it. The first episode is gorgeous but the second episode is basically entirely irrelevant to both the previous episode and, importantly, the entire video game following it, which remains untranslated. Taken on its own this ova is not very good but I can't say it's actually... bad? The animation in the second episode is terrible and the core plotline of it is flatly not very good, but it still has pretty entertaining dialog and some decent jokes. Having played the game, it shares some of the same problems as this ova but for havingmore casual downtime with the characters, and an actual ending, they're both much more satisfying placed in that fuller context. There's a lot of weird grey space between the ova and the game where it feels like there might have been plans for other media in between that never happened, but all of the basic ideas established in episode 1 are brought back up and resolved by the end of the game, including, surprisingly, smaller character stuff like Alice's reaction to Julie teasing her in the locker room, which isn't brought up directly but. The game has an entire optional chapter about Alice going on a date with a girl and effectively realizing that she's into women. So it's hard to say these two events are wholly unrelated.
If you're able to play the game, and plan on doing so, this ova is worth watching. If you can't, you might be able to appreciate certain aspects of it but it is definitely going to feel extremely incomplete.