Did it live up to the hype?

Yes. LOTM is my 2nd favorite show of the year (my number 1 is still To Be Hero X) and I'm gonna start reading the novel now. So 10/10. I just wished the fandom didn't spoil every minor / major detail of volume 1 in the comment sections. But hey LOTM fans are dedicated. So I give them credit for that. Praise the fool!

Not really.
The production is direction-less. The animation was pretty inconsistent. They didn't really know what to highlight or even how.
For someone who hasn't read the novel, they didn't really answer anything and couldn't understand that many things.
It probably could have been good with a more visionary director/studio like shaft, but this wasn't a very strong S1.

@ktg I agree that the 2D animation was inconsistent, especially the character animation when they were running or walking. The studio is capable of producing good walking and running animations, but most of the time the movements just felt unnatural.

But the 3D CGI animation was pretty consistent throughout the whole season.

About the production, despite its issues I think it was still better than 95% of the shows that have come out in the last few years.

As for the directing, I felt it was inconsistent. Sometimes it was good, but other times it just felt weird.

@Jfs_ sometimes when they are walking it's like they are floating and sometimes the horses and backgrounds characters looks weird in CGI ,but it has the best backgrounds in any animated show I've seen

@Jfs_ sometimes when they are walking it's like they are floating and sometimes the horses and backgrounds characters looks weird in CGI ,but it has the best backgrounds in any animated show I've seen

I didn't had any hype since i started to read the novel after the anime was almost finished. It is peak . I love the music, the animation and the voice acting.

If i had to nitpick on something is that although they took great liberties with the story they didn't fix the structural weakness of the volume one's ending. Everything explained in 2' or 2 pages at the end is not top writing.

Another issue is the leak of the release schedule and their plan to wrap up everything by 2035. If you are interested in the story would you wait for 10 years or open an e-book ? this does not mean that the masses wouldn't watch the series as they come out but it would push many people to read on and get their expectations sky high. To give a mild spoiler Volume 2 is way better than Volume 1 and definitely deserves the 30 episodes they are planning but who is going to wait?

@Asangbanne nah we have to be grateful we are getting season 2 in 2 years and that the other seasons are going to be adapted at some point in time (most anime don't even have this opportunity)

No, it obviously didn't. It sucked at storytelling and pacing, as if it were made only for people who were already familiar with the source material. It jumping from random timelines back and forth only made it more confusing, one such example being it introducing some guy named the sun, then completely erasing him from the story. Half of the time it felt like watching references and nods, not a well written contiguous story. From when it started - with some rush explanations with the in-universe rules - to where it ended - his rebirth, the anime fails at exposition from beginning to end.

None of this is new with chinese animations, as they always suck at these things, which is why nothing animated by them will ever be top tier. It's as if they expect you to already know what these niche mythologies are, failing to properly expose a new audience to them, which ultimately leads to a disappointing work of art. Too bad, it could have been anime of the year had they not failed so hard at the most basic aspect of storytelling.

No, it obviously didn't. It sucked at storytelling and pacing, as if it were made only for people who were already familiar with the source material. It jumping from random timelines back and forth only made it more confusing, one such example being it introducing some guy named the sun, then completely erasing him from the story. Half of the time it felt like watching references and nods, not a well written contiguous story. From when it started - with some rush explanations with the in-universe rules - to where it ended - his rebirth, the anime fails at exposition from beginning to end.

None of this is new with chinese animations, as they always suck at these things, which is why nothing animated by them will ever be top tier. It's as if they expect you to already know what these niche mythologies are, failing to properly expose a new audience to them, which ultimately leads to a disappointing work of art. Too bad, it could have been anime of the year had they not failed so hard at the most basic aspect of storytelling.

Been waiting years for this adaptation to come out. Did it live up to the hype... Not quite.
+ Show has some of the best visuals of any animated series.
+ Fantastic musical score that enhanced certain scenes.
+ Amazing Chinese & English Dub.
+ Somehow managed to tell the story of Volume 1 (one of the weakest vols) in 13 episodes.
- Pacing issues and a lot of important skipped content.
- Not enough Tarot Club Meetings.
- Erratic camerawork during fights, when they should have focused on smoother animation.

Although it wasn't the best adaptation I could have hoped for, at least it was a good adaptation.
I'm still waiting for that Release That Witch anime adaptation.

No, it obviously didn't. It sucked at storytelling and pacing, as if it were made only for people who were already familiar with the source material. It jumping from random timelines back and forth only made it more confusing, one such example being it introducing some guy named the sun, then completely erasing him from the story. Half of the time it felt like watching references and nods, not a well written contiguous story. From when it started - with some rush explanations with the in-universe rules - to where it ended - his rebirth, the anime fails at exposition from beginning to end.

None of this is new with chinese animations, as they always suck at these things, which is why nothing animated by them will ever be top tier. It's as if they expect you to already know what these niche mythologies are, failing to properly expose a new audience to them, which ultimately leads to a disappointing work of art. Too bad, it could have been anime of the year had they not failed so hard at the most basic aspect of storytelling.

@robertino129 I can't believe still people aren't understanding what's happening

@lalindu Dude, where did this guy write that he doesn’t understand anything? He only wrote that the show is poorly made and therefore hard to follow.

By the way, I recently found out that on Tencent’s official streaming service, those mini-stories for LoM, “Lessons with old dude”, are behind a VIP paywall. It’d be hilarious if the hard-to-understand story isn’t a bug but a feature to push sales of this homework before the episodes.

@lalindu Dude, where did this guy write that he doesn’t understand anything? He only wrote that the show is poorly made and therefore hard to follow.

By the way, I recently found out that on Tencent’s official streaming service, those mini-stories for LoM, “Lessons with old dude”, are behind a VIP paywall. It’d be hilarious if the hard-to-understand story isn’t a bug but a feature to push sales of this homework before the episodes.

@OrigamistToo pretty sure you can watch them on youtube

@OrigamistToo pretty sure you can watch them on youtube

@OrigamistToo tencent video vip is only 3 dollars,

anyway, you need vip to access like most of the currently releasing series on the entire platform, or else you can just wait for them to become free

its much more fair than our western streaming services which dont offer a free tier, and cost more, allwhile having less content

@1kirua_aim Well, I think $3 in their country and $3 in your country have different purchasing power. Although, I’m from Russia, and we’re “suffering” here because all the streaming services left, so we just watch whatever we want in any quality on pirate sites, where popular titles have 50+ unofficial professional dubbing options and dozens of subtitle variations. So, I’m not up to date on how much a subscription to something like Crunchyroll costs.

@Tmdcmnr
You're talking about chibi episodes that are tacked on here and there at the end of episodes, but I'm talking about Grandpa's lessons. Just the other day, a guy sent me a screenshot to show that chibis are embedded in the episodes, and in that same screenshot, Grandpa's lessons were listed separately under a VIP paywall. Every time, I'm amazed at how local folks manage to read the text and still miss the point.

@OrigamistToo https://v.qq.com/x/cover/mzc00200x6fq63h/w4101nt7it9.html?ptag=11974 here is the link you can literally watch everything there without even login. The VIP label is just for show.

@Tmdcmnr The link literally shows a preview, after which I got a pop-up about purchasing a VIP subscription, without which I can’t watch further.

@OrigamistToo pretty sure you can watch them on youtube

@Ayasakii don't bother with the troll. He's been spamming threads for every episode talking about how much he hates the show in long rants. At a certain point, you've got to be nuts to devote so much time to it. I blocked them long ago.

@1kirua_aim Well, I think $3 in their country and $3 in your country have different purchasing power. Although, I’m from Russia, and we’re “suffering” here because all the streaming services left, so we just watch whatever we want in any quality on pirate sites, where popular titles have 50+ unofficial professional dubbing options and dozens of subtitle variations. So, I’m not up to date on how much a subscription to something like Crunchyroll costs.

@Tmdcmnr
You're talking about chibi episodes that are tacked on here and there at the end of episodes, but I'm talking about Grandpa's lessons. Just the other day, a guy sent me a screenshot to show that chibis are embedded in the episodes, and in that same screenshot, Grandpa's lessons were listed separately under a VIP paywall. Every time, I'm amazed at how local folks manage to read the text and still miss the point.

@robertino129 Many donghua/anime only viewers understood it just fine and praised it. The fact that many people enjoy and follow it suggests the issue isn’t with the storytelling itself, but with how different viewers approach it.

To some people, there's an issue with the storytelling. And to many others, the storytelling is fine.

About the Sun guy, he's a Character for the next season and beyond. The Author was just trying to set up a new Character early on and that is completely fine. We Can't expect to see every character to get immediate screentime within just 13 episodes, especially when that character was introduced in episode 10.

@Jfs_ Hilariously wrong assumption made on fake data by the typical fanboy. There is literally no top comment I've seen on a certain orange site that said they "understood it just fine" in the first two episodes alone. All the comments by english speakers online were, and I quote from the top 5 comments on that very popular site:

- "Story was fast paced and kind of confusing"
- "Also, tons of characters were thrown and information hence it is confusing—since it's hard to process on such short amount of time given."
- "Not having read the book I just hope it slows down and explains some stuff."
- "Well, this first episode surely wasn't it. It felt like 2 or 3 episodes squished into a blob. To the point that I was thinking "there's no way this is a mystery series "
- "It all comes back to the pacing again. I think we're seeing a big kryptonite to CN Donghua where adaptations are always super rushed because of how the Web Novel scene is so overloaded in chapters because that's just how authors make money. "
- Even on MAL, the review with the most interactions says the same thing: " Its high scores come from those who have read the novel and don’t care about characterization or organic storytelling."

"many x understood it just fine" is nothing more than the illusory truth effect, and a typical propaganda tool used in media all over the world, it is not a real argument in 2025 when people have already grown past it. While I come with hard data, the top comments on this orange site clearly highlight how the vast majority of the audience there had issues with the storytelling, not understanding much about even the basics - divination, superpowers, potions, gods, etc..

@robertino129 I dont deny that some people found it confusing. fast pacing and heavy info dumps in the first 3 episodes arent for everyone. But cherry picking Reddit (the orange site I assume) top comments isn’t “hard data.” That just shows what a small, vocal part of the community thought, not the entire audience.

The fact remains: many others still followed and enjoyed it (otherwise it wouldnt have the popularity, discussions, and anticipation for season 2 that it does). Storytelling impact is always mixed, it’s not “everyone was confused” vs “everyone understood.” Both groups exist.

The show has nearly 250 million views on Tencent alone. If it were really as difficult to understand as you claim, it would’ve flopped instead of pulling in hundreds of millions of views (not even counting Crunchyroll’s numbers). That’s a much bigger metric than Reddit comment sections.

The top comments arent the “vast majority” of the audience. Most viewers don’t post on Reddit or MAL at all, they just watch, follow along, and understood it fine without feeling the need to complain.

@Jfs_ Lol, "cherry picking". I literally picked from top 5 comments on reddit and the top review on mal. How is that cherry picking, fanboy? Reddit is literally the first google result when you search for episode 1 discussions. It is most definitively hard data and one of the most relevant forums for english speaking audiences. Nobody cares about what the entire audience looks like since the vast majority of it are made up of chinese, the only demographic which would - presumably - not need exposition (1).

Again, with the illusory truth. "Many others" is no point of reference for hard data. Very telling that while I quote top comments from reddit and mal from real english speakers, all you reply in return is with some outdated psychological tool that doesn't even work with children in today's era.

Furthermore, you completely skirt the topic at hand with useless comments such as "followed and enjoyed it", as if people don't do that with thousands of other animes which absolutely suck at storytelling and pacing, some even having 20 times the number of members of this show (2).

Again, with useless data on chinese websites which literally no english speaker frequents, going back to point (1) above. The devotee is really going sideways hard, making ridiculous statements that aren't grounded in reality at all. When there are shows in the (2) situation above, how could a show have flopped simply because it failed in the storytelling department, little enthusiast? Grasping at straws now because other people dare highlight the weaknesses of a show?

The top comments on Engliish speaking sites typically reflect the thoughts of the audience based in english speaking communities. That is - quite literally - a fact, and how people from multiple countries under a common language interact with each other. The mere fact that you grasp at straws yet again - talking about "posting" is very telling. Maybe you should think again over what other function these sites - reddit and mal - have besides "posting".

@OrigamistToo
Old Neil's Mysticism Classes are available for free on the Official Lord of Mysteries Donghua Weibo. Also, even though they're VIP on Tencent Video, the episodes themselves are under the same VIP, so it makes no difference. The episodes are just temporarily free since it's currently airing, but only Episode 1 will be permanently free. Episode 1 doesn't introduce Old Neil, so having the first Mysticism Class be VIP is fine.

@Walter12347 On the screenshot I saw, the series was literally open at the 36-minute mark with chibis, and next to it was a list of all the episodes that had come out without VIP mark and with all "Grandpa's Lessons" episodes marked as VIP. Considering that the guy somehow managed to watch up to the chibis without hitting a "Buy VIP" paywall, you can already conclude that they’re in separate pricing categories.

@robertino129 Again, Cherry-picking top Reddit comments is not the same as hard data. That reflects a small, vocal part of the community, not the entire audience. Im starting to think that you dont even know what a "Hard data" even means, and yet youre using it so often.

And yes Reddit and MAL matter for English-speaking discussion, they’re influential forums. But saying the top five comments there equal “hard data” about the whole audience is a category error. Top comments are a biased sample: they reflect early impressions, the tastes of the most vocal/engaged users, and what an algorithm promotes. That’s not the same as representative data.

Real hard data would be cross-platform viewership, retention percentages, aggregated ratings, or a representative survey. Those numbers, like the hundreds of millions of views on Tencent and the sustained international interest, show a much broader picture than a handful of upvoted comments.

If your whole argument depends on five upvoted comments, that says more about the weakness of your evidence than the show itself.

@Jfs_ The devotee again speaks nonsense about how the top mal reviews and top reddit comments are "cherry picking". Let's educate ourselves, shall we? "The action or practice of choosing and taking only the most beneficial or profitable items". Seems using the most interacted with and upvoted comments and reviews on the 2 biggest english speaking forums is quite far from the phrase cherry picking. Now let's see what hard data means " objectively measurable, factual, and verifiable information that can be expressed numerically". Seems I was correct, as every top comment and review has a measurable and factual weight, expressed numerically.

The top five comments on each episode and the top 5 interacted with reviews equal hard data reflective of the entire english audience, that is correct. HAH, Early impressions? Let's scroll down and see comments from 2 months ago then, instead of the 3 months old ones:
- "I'm six episodes into it and I still don't have clue on whats going on."
- "This was like watching a series of Final Fantasy cutscenes spliced together. Beautiful artwork but confounding as it gets."
- "Having great animation and even a great story is not enough. How you deliver that story is just as important, if not more important. "

Oh wow, it seems that even the simpleton answers without much depth which haven't been upvoted at all say the same things. Let's ask grok to summarize it all for us:



So no, using an AI tool to summarize the reception proves that not only am I right, but that you are also wrong. The storytelling is the shows' biggest weakness among english speakers - by far. And no amount of you flailing about like a headless chicken trying to digress into factually wrong conclusions (such as if something isn't anime of the year then it's a flop) will change that fact.

Viewership, retention percentages, ratings, none of these have anything to do with whether a show's storytelling was done properly or not. Those numbers only reflect a show's success or failure commercially. You have proven yet again how you have no clue what you are talking about. The hundreds of millions of views on a chinese site by strictly chinese speakers have literally ZERO to do with the storytelling from an english speakers' perspective, little child. They don't even share the same dialogue, since most english speakers read the ENGLISH subs, they don't know chinese.

If your whole argument on whether a show's english storytelling is good or not depends on a show's numbers on chinese websites rather than the feedback from english speaking people, that says more about the weakness of your intellect than the show itself.