Link Click 01-14-2022, 03:54 PM
#1
Now look, if you're like me and you live under an anime-rock, you probably haven't heard or stumbled upon Link Click. Which is honestly impressive given how fucking loud everyone has been about it. And also, how criminal it is to have not yet seen it.
That's right, I'm joining the choir. If you haven't seen this show, I'd suggest you should change that.
Link Click follows the story of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, and their odd-jobs they receive working at the Time Photo Studio. You'd assume that it being a photo studio, they'd have pretty consistent work, and usually of the same type, but that's where you'd be wrong. Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang act as executor and observers, of the past. Their work is far from the usual nine-to-five. Clients bring in photos to the studio with specific requests in regards to the points in time the photos were taken. It's the job of our two main characters to fulfill those requests.
Now, going into the show I thought it was going to be relatively simple concept. Not so much episodic, but a more serialized story. I mean, there's timey-wimey things going on, but further than that, it just seemed like another Golden Boy when I first heard of it. And that's not a bad thing. That's not what this is, though. Our story is much more nuanced than that.
Our mainstays hold themselves to three main rules. They have twelve hours from the time the photo they enter was taken to fulfill the request of their customers. Power bottom--I mean Cheng Xiaoshi--is to always listen to power top. And lastly, never change the past. Don't worry, nothing is particularly spoiled yet, this is all first episode material.
The animation in the show is quite good. It's got a bit of an unsaturated look to it, but that doesn't work against it. There's some dark tones here, and they match the story immaculately. What I will say is there's definitely some parts where the show uses very noticeable CGI, which doesn't hurt some scenes, but there's a very important scene in particular where it's front-and-center, and the shot composition perfectly displays a break in the continuity between the CG part and the at least mostly-human animated bit. You'll know it when you see it, literally like the most important part of the show.
So I've got to dock some points for the bad continuity, but as a whole, the animation doesn't miss.
For the sound design, I've got to say, there's very very few anime that I watch the opening or ending for, but I watched through both. Frequently. Now, part of my skipping of most OPs could just be my impatience in a show, and this show has like a thirty second OP, but it's a good bit of eye-candy with some good music. The ED I think hits even harder. It's longer, but I still didn't find myself skipping it much.
Other than those though, now that I think about it, nothing about the ambient music or sounds was ever notable. I don't remember it all. You could attribute that to how jarring Mandarin is compared to Japanese, and I am definitely used to the more degenerate of the two languages (sorry, Japan. You've been tarnished by nukes and anime girls, and unfortunately you can't make a comeback from one of those things). So while I sing good praise for the OP and ED of the show, I guess I'll say that the rest of it isn't notable. There is one exception, and that's literally the very last episode, and the most tense part of it. It was a transition from one emotion to another, on drastically different parts of the emotional spectrum, and it didn't feel forced. It fit incredibly well.
So for what it's worth, while I can't remember much of the audio, the bit that I can was done well. Which is a little disappointing because I know the sound designers probably put a lot of work into it. Don't let this convince you the sound design is bad--I'm not saying that it is. I'm just saying that for the most part it's so... neutral. It is neither noticeably bad, nor notably good. And that's okay.
As for our characters, you'll see that we have a slowly growing supporting cast throughout the show. It's weird because to some degree the supporting cast becomes our main cast for bits of the show. None of the characters I ever particularly hated, they all felt like real people in a real world, and that's pretty damn good. I personally can't get behind an anime if I can't believe that the characters in said anime aren't living, breathing things, no matter how much I have to suspend my grasp on reality. In an odd way, everything kind of just feels real in this show.
Look, I've typed enough, the final line I need to draw here is that Link Click hits its world, characters, and story on the head. If those three aforementioned qualities of a show are a nail, then Link Click is a foot wide sledgehammer. The animation and sound design are pretty decent, but like I said prior, there was nothing noticeably bad nor notably good. And to reiterate, that's not inherently bad.
Where this show shines is in its story. And as much as I wish I could just go on, anything past episode two really starts getting into the weeds of it. If you're looking for a show to watch, that has to do with time travel, has alright animation and sound but a killer story, here it is.
That's right, I'm joining the choir. If you haven't seen this show, I'd suggest you should change that.
Link Click follows the story of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, and their odd-jobs they receive working at the Time Photo Studio. You'd assume that it being a photo studio, they'd have pretty consistent work, and usually of the same type, but that's where you'd be wrong. Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang act as executor and observers, of the past. Their work is far from the usual nine-to-five. Clients bring in photos to the studio with specific requests in regards to the points in time the photos were taken. It's the job of our two main characters to fulfill those requests.
Now, going into the show I thought it was going to be relatively simple concept. Not so much episodic, but a more serialized story. I mean, there's timey-wimey things going on, but further than that, it just seemed like another Golden Boy when I first heard of it. And that's not a bad thing. That's not what this is, though. Our story is much more nuanced than that.
Our mainstays hold themselves to three main rules. They have twelve hours from the time the photo they enter was taken to fulfill the request of their customers. Power bottom--I mean Cheng Xiaoshi--is to always listen to power top. And lastly, never change the past. Don't worry, nothing is particularly spoiled yet, this is all first episode material.
The animation in the show is quite good. It's got a bit of an unsaturated look to it, but that doesn't work against it. There's some dark tones here, and they match the story immaculately. What I will say is there's definitely some parts where the show uses very noticeable CGI, which doesn't hurt some scenes, but there's a very important scene in particular where it's front-and-center, and the shot composition perfectly displays a break in the continuity between the CG part and the at least mostly-human animated bit. You'll know it when you see it, literally like the most important part of the show.
So I've got to dock some points for the bad continuity, but as a whole, the animation doesn't miss.
For the sound design, I've got to say, there's very very few anime that I watch the opening or ending for, but I watched through both. Frequently. Now, part of my skipping of most OPs could just be my impatience in a show, and this show has like a thirty second OP, but it's a good bit of eye-candy with some good music. The ED I think hits even harder. It's longer, but I still didn't find myself skipping it much.
Other than those though, now that I think about it, nothing about the ambient music or sounds was ever notable. I don't remember it all. You could attribute that to how jarring Mandarin is compared to Japanese, and I am definitely used to the more degenerate of the two languages (sorry, Japan. You've been tarnished by nukes and anime girls, and unfortunately you can't make a comeback from one of those things). So while I sing good praise for the OP and ED of the show, I guess I'll say that the rest of it isn't notable. There is one exception, and that's literally the very last episode, and the most tense part of it. It was a transition from one emotion to another, on drastically different parts of the emotional spectrum, and it didn't feel forced. It fit incredibly well.
So for what it's worth, while I can't remember much of the audio, the bit that I can was done well. Which is a little disappointing because I know the sound designers probably put a lot of work into it. Don't let this convince you the sound design is bad--I'm not saying that it is. I'm just saying that for the most part it's so... neutral. It is neither noticeably bad, nor notably good. And that's okay.
As for our characters, you'll see that we have a slowly growing supporting cast throughout the show. It's weird because to some degree the supporting cast becomes our main cast for bits of the show. None of the characters I ever particularly hated, they all felt like real people in a real world, and that's pretty damn good. I personally can't get behind an anime if I can't believe that the characters in said anime aren't living, breathing things, no matter how much I have to suspend my grasp on reality. In an odd way, everything kind of just feels real in this show.
Look, I've typed enough, the final line I need to draw here is that Link Click hits its world, characters, and story on the head. If those three aforementioned qualities of a show are a nail, then Link Click is a foot wide sledgehammer. The animation and sound design are pretty decent, but like I said prior, there was nothing noticeably bad nor notably good. And to reiterate, that's not inherently bad.
Where this show shines is in its story. And as much as I wish I could just go on, anything past episode two really starts getting into the weeds of it. If you're looking for a show to watch, that has to do with time travel, has alright animation and sound but a killer story, here it is.
![[Image: BXqGARG.png]](https://i.imgur.com/BXqGARG.png)
![[+]](https://sinister.li/images/modern/collapse_collapsed.png)
