First off, I watch the show purely from the eyes of a casual audience and Donghua fan, I have not read the book or watch the 2D nor live action version.

But from what I have seen, judging the show with its own merit. In my eyes, Way of Choices is already in some regard — A Masterpiece. In short, it has so many excellent elements that make me able to overlook some of its flaws. And with any shows, ultimately my judgement on a show rest on my emotional engagement, and there are quite a few moments I’m absolutely entranced by this Donghua.

Praise:

* Music (The Score) — the immediate thing that make this show super special is the music. Right from Ep 1, there are so many iconic melodies from this show. It really is the style of score that I enjoy, and the music elevates many moments in the story, whether it be the internal intellectual display of Chen Chang Sheng, the action, the romance, or the more magical moments like falling comets in the night sky. I lost track of how many of those melodies connect with me, it’s literally banger after banger. It’s definitely my top 3 most favourite Donghua OST if not no. 1.
* Ep 17 is a masterpiece episode — maybe I’m alone in this one, but I really really love ep 17. It’s not the usual action packed episode, it’s an episode where Chen Chang Sheng traces the footsteps from previous senpai and uses his intellect to crack the code — the satisfaction of this episode, seeing how our MC uses his wit to solve a puzzle, and match it with spellbinding celestial visuals and magical music, I just had the best of time watching this episodes, and reminds me the joy of watching something truly special.
* The Tone — Most cultivation is either EPIC, dark or action heavy. I really appreciate Way of Choices being somewhat of its own genre, focusing more on being an intellectual mystery and romantic show. And yes, I know people who love the book already dislike the show for being too action packed and aura farming. But just as a casual viewer, I still feel the tone is true to the spirit, unique enough and the balance of action is well handled.
* Art Direction — Might go down as having the best Art Direction in any Donghua I have watched, especially in cultivations. All of the Chinese Ink designs, words design and background design are phenomenal. You can have older shows like RMJI, RI or Swallowed Star all being absolute classics but sometimes they have crude word designs. Way of Choices earns extra points for having really beautiful and polished art direction.
* Character Design — Love love love the character design. Mo Yu is my favourite female character design from the show, she strikes the perfect balance of looking unique and pretty. Love Luo Luo’s different looks. MC looks great in both Dragon form and normal form. Female lead looks standard but still strong. Overall just super solid character designs. Very eye candy and easy to like.
* Romance and MC — thanks to the Mao Ni being such a strong writer, I think the dialogue between the romantic leads is strong and cute, in many ways I find the romance in this show way stronger than most other cultivation Donghua. Chen Chang Sheng is the type of MC I really like. His story is classical in a way that doesn’t feel generic, his intellect feels earned and well established. Might be a bit too OP in critical moments, but in comparison with similar shows, I find this show to be less faulty for most parts.
* Voice Acting — Except for one character (the villain in black robe, don’t know why his voice sounds so amateurish and unimposing), I think the voice acting is really good. Except the MC, I love his voice. Fits the character perfectly.

Critiques:

* Antagonists — So far there is no particularly strong conflicts from the antagonist. Nan Ke is the prettiest one and I enjoy watching her scenes, but still wouldn’t say her character is particularly strong nor do I feel genuine threat from her character.
* Animation inconsistency — The Animation is definitely very strong, so strong to the point whenever they have janky crowd behaviour, it briefly takes me out from the immersion. I love most of the camera angles and key action poses, but for the love of god this director just refuse to animate strong ‘expressions.’ Characters are going through life and death situations and they still look wooden. I need to see more expressive emotions man, they have the emotional range of a fashion model. This is really something I need them to improve in S2.

Overall, this is very subjective, but the show hits many point right and tug my heartstring many times. Really love it and highly recommend it.

It’s almost an operatic show, especially in the last few episodes. Melodramatic, maybe a bit corny at times, but ultimately very beautifully crafted.

9.5/10. An instant classic.

Surprised to find out that the English title in post credits is “Beyond Time” instead of “Beyond Time’s Gaze”, but I guess it made more sense since there is no “gaze” in the Chinese title.

Pros:

Overall pretty much an instant top 10, and would be surprised if Donghua fans don’t think the same too.

• Animation is top of the game. It’s definitely in conversation as one of the best looking Donghua shows. Particularly when it comes to certain moments and certain shots, the animators definitely cook up some 10/10 shots, and the dark gritty high contrast cinematography is definitely such a treat to the eyes.
• Character visual design is great as well. Xu Qing has one of the best MC designs, he looks unique enough, but also manages to be the handsome cool protagonist. I also love most of the female designs as well. Not much complain, the main cast all have stellar designs.
• Action scenes are super strong and fun to watch. The raw blood-soaked choreography is the show’s biggest selling point, and I’m so glad this show supercharged Donghua’s action-violence spectrum to a new territory.
• Story is solid overall. In its best moments, it reminds me of the joy of watching peak RMJI, mature storytelling about a loner battling his ways in the vast brutal world of cultivation. Always love the immersive adventure and power ladder aspect of cultivation stories, and Beyond Time’s Gaze reminds us why we love cultivations.

Critiques:

Inconsistency. Indulgence of style over substance in direction. Despite its super strong praise, Beyond TIme’s Gaze sometimes frustrates me for being a very inconsistent show in mostly 2 elements:

• Inconsistency in tone, especially the comedy. The comedy is VERY corny, grade schoolish. At best, it’s fun banter between Xu Qin and the captain, at worst it’s very silly, and it doesn’t match the overall dark tone of the show at all. What’s more frustrating, is the further it gets, the more comedic moments the show has. It has at least a handful in the last few episodes, and 90% of those comedic moments aren’t very well executed. My taste leans towards more subtle comedy, especially in a dark epic story - like Batman disappearing suddenly in Nolan films, or Tom Cruise faking hand gestures to enemy fighter jets in Top Gun Maverick. Comedy needs to be earned, and written smartly. Unfortunately, the comedy in the show is pretty weak, a pretty big flaw in my eyes.
• Inconsistency in period designs and visual effects. This is not a deal breaker, but every time the show incorporate some anachronistic element, like magic smart phones, texting with cute emojis, sci-fi holograms, and the glitchy effects in psychological moments, I find those scenes pretty jarring, it does take me out of the immersion for a brief moment. Honestly, a more disciplined director would never lean on those design choices, so I just feel like this director is pretty indulgent on some of his decisions.
• Inconsistency in animation. Now, the animation is obviously very good, and unlike other peak show like RMJI or TOHG. I actually think Beyond Time’s Gaze sometimes even earn extra points for having occasional 10/10 super polished perfect shots. But those 10/10 shots make the inconsistency more obvious when there is occasional 6/10 shots. There is still noticeable jank in character motion, some weird outline choices when the footage flip colours, sometimes the comp between multiple elements aren’t flawlessly executed. And the biggest flaw of them is the occasional obvious use of AI.

Now, this is super subjective critique, just my taste.
• Music. For the most part, especially the cinematic score, I think it’s good. It’s not as memorable as RMJI, Ling Cage or Way of Choices, but it’s fitting and good. But the one thing I didn’t like about the music is the songs. The directors use a few acoustic rock ballads in several emotional scenes, namely Lei Dui’s death and Xu Qing rejecting his purple gown. The use of songs in those moments feel heavy handed, I just prefer cinematic score over the use of sentimental guitar songs. This reminds me of directors like James Gunn and Alex Garland who frequently love to use sentinel guitar songs indulgently in their movies, and this director seems to have joint the group as well.
• Episode 5-6, the death of Lei Dui. I saw some people really enjoyed that scene, even cried in that episode. Personally, I feel the scene is very heavy handed and doesn’t feel entirely earned. The melodramatic flashbacks just feel jammed in, and screams “cry now”, I just don’t feel like the emotional scenes feel natural and properly earned.
• Xu Qing’s power up in earlier episodes is a bit too quick and he is too strong too early on. I remember thinking he is way too OP when he enacts revenge for Lei Dui, and that episodes leaves a bitter taste. The later part seems a bit better, his progression feels a bit more earned and linear.

Overall, a must watch show if you love something more dark and ruthless. Production is top-notched. Look forward to the Nian-fan, I have a lot of fun binging it.

Praises:

Hands down has to be the best Iseikai story I have ever watched. Better than the ones I have watched from Japan.

Mature storytelling. Simple but effective. Smart characters are shown how they are smart instead of spoon-feeding you Science wiki dump like Dr.Stone or Dungeon Meshi.

Very grounded. A perfect example of less is more. The restraint in its fantasy aspect is precisely what makes the story clicks. People are dressed very modestly, you don’t have video game looking characters roaming around, everything is handled with maturity and thoughtfulness in its world building.

Very smooth and natural flow of pacing, conflicts unfold in a very believable fashion while slowly escalating in intensity. The writing is very clear and easy to follow. It guides you through the socio-political conflicts step by step, reminding me of the joy of playing a good castle-building game.

Juggling between economic, army, religion, social status and fantasy at the same time is no easy job, but the story unfolds so smoothly that makes you feel like it’s an easy and simple story. Such masterful writing.

In many case the story is so engaging, even if the animation is just serviceable, I’m so much more invested watching this over other high fantasy shows like Castlevania or Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation.

Critiques:

I don’t watch a lot of 2D Donghua because finding a 2D art style that matches my taste is difficult, especially when anime is so saturated with high level illustrations.

Release that Witch reminds me a lot of Orb: On the Movements of the Earth. Both shows have serviceable visuals (6.5/10 in my book) but a (9-10/10) story.

You can tell the production is limited by its budget, there are a handful of PPT scenes (meaning no animation, just slides of keyframes). At the very least, I think the illustration & art style of Release that Witch is good enough for a decent watch. There are many other 2D Donghua and acclaimed Anime where I simply couldn’t get behind because the art style just didn’t click with me. The more mature illustrations in the character design definitely helps. If it was handled like a video game fantasy style like the cover of the novel (click here)[https://releasethatwitch.fandom.com/wiki/Release\_that\_Witch\_Wiki\], I might not actually watch it.

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of the title, Release that Witch and the OP.

Release that Girl, in Chinese 放開那女孩, is basically a meme, a movie line from a Stephen Chow movie. It is a bit weird to me that a such mature and profound story has such a meme-feeling title.

The OP sounds like a Chinese military choral piece, umm… just not in a good way. I just didn’t click with it.

Chinese Voice acting in a western fantasy show still needs a bit of getting used to. Maybe because I understand mandarin, sometimes hearing English translated names spoken in Chinese is just a bit difficult to get behind. The only Voice Acting scenes I find a bit lacklustre are the epic speech scenes. Those scenes are a bit stiff in my opinion.

Remarks:

What a crime against humanity that the show ran out of funding and stopped literally in the middle of production. I hope us fans get a happy ending, because a Donghua like this is so rare, and the creative team mostly deserves to get all the fundings to see through this masterpiece.