Shiguang Dailiren II

Let me preface this by saying that season 1 of Link Click was one of the most enjoyable original "anime" (I know it's a donghua but it's my first and so far only one besides Scissor's Seven) that I'd seen in a long time. It instantly made it to the top five of my personal favorite time travel stories, just behind the legendary Steins;Gate. I loved the framing device of using photos to jump into the past, I loved that the main characters weren't the main focus for the majority of the show but still likable and intriguing enough to care about, and that theepisodic stories told were all equally compelling and heart-felt, and I loved loved loved how all the plot threads came together in the end to culminate in a truly intense final arc that brought us even closer to the main characters personally, rounding out with a jaw-dropping cliffhanger while leaving so many questions open for another season to answer. I ain't gonna lie, my expectations for this second season have just been building and building in the two-year wait (helped along by all the promotional material released, and promises of what to expect from the creators), until they reached admittedly unfairly high levels. So it's with a heavy heart that I have to call this second season, in a word, a DISAPPOINTMENT. It wasn't terrible, but it definitely did not live up to the hype built by the first season (and the show's promotional team) at all. With the way the first season ended, it was clear season 2 could not continue in the same episodic format. I expected this and in fact anticipated it, as I was eager to learn more about the main leads, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves. Unfortunately, far from just being different to the first season (and not in the right ways), this second season doesn't even feel like the same show. There are glimpses of what it used to be in the first few episodes, when the titular time agents actually do some time travelling, but the majority of the rest of the show is taken up with the things happening in the present time, which isn't a whole lot. I'm sure anyone who enjoyed season 1 didn't like it for being an action crime drama (because it wasn't!), and yet this season seemed to be trying so hard to transform itself into that... and ultimately failing. Look, the fight animations were cool, but they're essentially just filler scenes and they took up WAY too much screen time in some episodes. What's fun about watching police officers beat up a bunch of goons for FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES when the actual main characters are in danger somewhere else? It wasn't only fights that ate up a lot of time that could've been dedicated to actual character exploration and plot development; from episode 6 onward, SO much of this show is just backtracking and redoing scenes over and over again for the sake of "revealing" things they could've shown the first time around. I swear the plot took a complete standstill for THREE WHOLE EPISODES while we backtracked and flashbacked our way through plot points we'd already seen or inferred. It really gave off this vibe of the show's writers wanting to stall as much as possible before moving forward with anything really TANGIBLE in terms of plot progression, because they didn't actually know where it was they wanted to go with this story. And it IS just one story here, unlike the first season. While that would have been fine, the fact is, this just wasn't a very INTERESTING story. The antagonist from the end of season 1 turns out to be pretty lame and too cartoonishly over-the-top in his mannerisms (complete with maniacal laughter that also goes on for way longer than it should...) to take seriously, and the other characters introduced aren't much better. I couldn't give a flip about Qian Jin because his motivation and backstory is so uncompelling and unsympathetic - the dude is just a douchebag and I only wanted him taken out. And I haven't even talked about the over-abundance of fake outs and cliffhangers. This is a problem that rears its ugly head right from the first episode. Given that anyone who might be watching this season now won't have to wait for it, I don't feel any qualms about spoiling something that happens in that first episode. Do you remember how the first season ended? That big cliffhanger that left those of us who had to wait two years for this season on the edge of our seats, while each teaser and trailer that came out in the meantime made us believe that a certain character was going to die? Boy did that create a lot of expectations for what this season would be about. Well, halfway through the first episode of season 2, they reveal that... that character is totally fine. Not dead, not even in danger of dying. They play it off like a joke and move on. That first episode basically represents how the show handles all its cliffhangers (and there's one for each episode!) for its entire run. They make you think something is going to happen, then bail on it immediately. Oh no, a character who's hiding is about to get caught? Next episode: Sike! No he doesn't! Oh no, a character is about to change something in the past that wasn't supposed to happen? Next episode: Nah, he doesn't. Oh no, some characters just got blown up! Did they survive?? Next episode: Yeah they're fine, they didn't even get a scratch. Literally every ending for every episode was done in a way just to string its viewers along to make sure they tune in next week, without actually doing anything major in the story. Maybe this will be less annoying to people who binge-watch this season all the way through, but for us weekly watchers, it was really aggravating waiting a whole week to see what consequences would occur, only to be shown that there weren't any. Honestly, about the only things I can credit this season with that make it enjoyable are the FEW moments we get between the three main leads (and I think I can count those moments on one hand), the opening theme which is even better than the first season's and almost seems to tell a better version of this season's story, and the very last scene of the last episode which finally reveals something actually worth caring about. And of course, sucker that I am, I am still looking forward to another season because of that reveal. Because overall, this season was really just a transitional part of the story, the bridge that will (hopefully) lead to all the answers we originally wanted. And it really shows; it was clunky and not very well paced or prepared, and the plot never really goes anywhere, but I never missed an episode and it was fun to laugh at even as I was frustrated by it at times. And by the time season 3 rolls around, if the writers actually do it right this time, it won't have harmed the story much in the long run. (The only thing that could do THAT for me is if they actually make the two male leads a couple - please don't.)

It's really sad to see that lots of shounen animes with almost no storyline and only focusing on fight scenes are getting so much attention while this masterpiece is underrated af. If i could i would rate even higher than 10. First season was more like different stories on each episode and because of that it was more emotional. But this season focuses on the storyline more and i enjoyed so much that how actually mind blowing the story is. Especially that plot twist at the end.. aaah i have so many questions and theories in my head. And let's don't forget the opening and endingtoo. Even though i like the first season's soundtrack more, song choices are very good again. i'm so excited about season 3. I hope it continues with the same quality. Keep up the good work guys! Also thanks for the amazing animations.

Finally, this is the last episode! To be honest, I really love so much "Link Click", I like both the first and the second part equally. But it's important to realize that they're just about different things, and the focus of the story has changed 360° First season was an excellent time travel with a lot of small different local stories which as the plot progressed, slowly coalesced into one coherent story. In the final episode we got a huge cliffhanger and the answers to what comes next... The Second season was absolutely different than the first one. The accents has shifted. We finally went from thoselocalized small stories to a whole story with its own antagonist, characters, events and a specific goal. So this season, there's more emphasis on the conflict itself, revealing the personalities of the characters, as well as the gradual unraveling of the plot. And in my honest opinion - S2 as excellent as the S1. It's a worthy sequel of the best title of 2021 year. And actually, this season made a huge leap over the S1 in terms of visual, animation and a scene staging. They feel incredibly vivid, and the OST complements them as well. Bottom line, 10/10

The second season of link licka continues the story left unfinished in the first season, it does it just as well, changing various elements and patterns, such as adding more fights to the series, which really raises the level because it is known that it is easier to create an interesting fight involving superpowers, than a regular fist fight. The plot is fantastic, it has a sad story, action-packed moments, situations that make you wonder why this situation happened and how to solve it, and plenty of twists and turns. The graphics are of a very good standard, the music is suspenseful, and the charactersare easy to like. If I were to rate this series based solely on the first season, I would give it a 9/10, but with the second season fleshing things out, I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite anime.

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