Donghua Releases in August 2026
August is the strongest month donghua has had all year, and it is front-loaded: a long-awaited original opens on the 2nd, and the return everyone has been waiting six years for lands on the 14th. Below is what is actually confirmed, where you can watch it legally, and — separately — what is circulating without a firm date. Every entry names its source.
Premiering in August
False Memory
The month opens with an original science-fiction series rather than a novel adaptation, which by itself makes it worth attention — original donghua at this production tier are rare. The premise follows Guan Chao, who is hunting an energy source called the Burning Stone to power a time-travel weapon, and ends up inside the Memory Administration Bureau alongside memory collectors Fang Tang and Bai Chong, working through what the production calls "memory layers." It is directed and created by Shuyu Li and BlackLine.
Two details matter for planning. First, the first three episodes drop at once on August 2 rather than weekly — an increasingly common launch tactic for originals that need to hook an audience before word of mouth decides their fate. Second, for viewers outside China, episodes are set to appear free on the official Made by Bilibili YouTube channel roughly one to two weeks after the Chinese premiere. If you do not have Bilibili access, that delay is the legal route, and it is worth the wait.
Link Click — Season 3, Part One
This is the headline release of the month and probably of the year. Link Click (时光代理人) has spent years as the most critically respected donghua in the English-speaking fandom while producing comparatively little material, and the third season has been anticipated since it was announced. The premiere date is worth noting for an unusual reason: it moved earlier. An autumn window circulated widely for months before the production confirmed August 14, which is the opposite of how these schedules normally drift.
The season is split, with Part Two currently slated for 2027 — so expect this to be a partial run rather than a complete arc. On our own list, Link Click currently sits at #3 in the July ranking despite carrying a higher composite score than the series above it, purely because it has been between seasons. If the premiere lands, that is the single most likely change to the August ranking.
Just landed
Lord of Mysteries — Special: Prey
Not an August release, but the most relevant thing to have arrived recently and the reason our current #1 is comfortable where it is. The first season ran thirteen episodes covering only the opening volume, "The Clown," and drew steady criticism for the arcs it skipped. This three-episode special goes back and animates that missing material, including the Silver City and Vice-Admiral content. A full second season is slated for 2027, so this is the substantial Lord of Mysteries content available in the meantime — and it is on Crunchyroll, which makes it the easiest entry on this page for a Western viewer to actually watch.
On the horizon — date not confirmed
The Sacred Ruins (圣墟)
The adaptation that xianxia readers have been waiting on: The Sacred Ruins closes out Chen Dong's loose trilogy after Perfect World and Shrouding the Heavens, following Chu Feng on an Earth where evolution has restarted and ancient ruins are waking up. A 2026 window has circulated repeatedly and various dates have been attached to it in aggregator posts, but we have not found a premiere date confirmed by the production or by Tencent, so we are not printing one. When there is a real date, it will appear here.
One correction worth making while we are here, because it circulates constantly in English coverage: The Sacred Ruins is written by Chen Dong — the author of Perfect World and Shrouding the Heavens — and not by I Eat Tomatoes, who is frequently and wrongly credited for it.
What this means for the rankings
Our monthly list only moves when something has actually aired and its reception can be checked, so nothing on this page has changed a position yet. Two of them plausibly will. Link Click's return on August 14 is the obvious one — it removes the only thing holding it at #3. False Memory is the wildcard: an original with no novel fanbase behind it either connects immediately or disappears, and three episodes on day one means we will know quickly. Both will be assessed for the August list, and if a position changes we will name the title, the old and new rank, and the evidence.
Sources. False Memory premiere date, episode count, studios and international release route via Anime Corner and Anitrendz. Link Click Season 3 Part One date, reported from the production's official announcement, via Anime.com. Lord of Mysteries special and 2027 season window via ScreenRant. The Sacred Ruins authorship and trilogy placement via Novel Updates.