Why Alice in Borderland anime only has 3 episodes

Alice in Borderland has secured a place in everyone's heart after the manga and the anime both created an impact in the minds of the viewers. Since the manga's release, it has been discussed by the global anime fanbase, who are thought to have good taste.

The original video animation of the Alice in Borderland manga was adapted back in 2014, followed by the release of the first episode in October 2014. Even though the series has captured quite a lot of attention from anime communities around the world, people are still surprised at how they pulled it off with just three episodes.

The anime was particularly a miniseries; it started off with episode number 1, titled Game 1: Three of Clubs, followed by episode 2, titled Game 2: Five of Spades, and episode 3, titled Game 3: Seven of Hearts. It appears to be a trilogy of episodes that wrapped up the story in three episodes.

The reason why Alice in Borderland features just three episodes is the fact that it was an Original Video Animation (OVA) of the manga volumes. The studio bundled the manga chapters and stacked them inside these three episodes, which concluded perfectly with the volumes released at the time.

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The real reason behind Alice in Borderland featuring just three episodes

Alice in Borderland has captured the global anime fanbase with its other-worldly plot and focused characterization of the protagonist. Silver LinkConnect Studio came up with the idea of launching a mini-series just as the manga was gaining popularity. It was supposed to be the original manga adaptation, which resulted in the popular anime adaptation everyone talks about frequently.

The series premiered its first episode on October 17, 2014, and ran until February 18, 2015. There was more than a month’s gap between each of the episodes. As it was a miniseries, the studio had to keep a longer gap. Original video animations (OVAs) are typically much shorter than other types of adaptations. Because Alice in Borderland is an OVA, it has only three episodes.

Silver LinkConnect Studio had to compress all the manga volumes released till then and stacked them in the original video animation of Alice in Borderland. To be precise, the anime consists of manga volumes that were released up until the time the series began. So fans who have only watched the OVA have not witnessed the actual ending of the manga volumes.

To summarize, the manga's original video animation did cater to the anime audience, which was a fan of the manga series. It worked pretty well at capturing the attention of the fans, and it led to both the anime and the miniseries gaining a larger part of the fandom.

Fans who want to watch the OVA face the acute problem of not knowing where to find it. The miniseries is available on HIDIVE, but with a subscription.