Scrolling down MyAnimeList’s Top Anime rankings, it might come as a surprise to find Link Click in the #36 position, with an average score of 8.77. The only donghua to feature in the top 50, Link Click is only a couple of places behind giants such as Attack On Titan The Final Season Part 2, and ahead of Cowboy Bebop, a celebrated cult classic. Baffling as it may be to many, what are the reasons for the 2021’s donghua’s success?
Produced by bilibili and BeDream and licensed by Funimation, Link Click follows the adventures of protagonists Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang as they dive into the past for money. Building on the sci-fi trope of time travel, the series’ structure and themes make for an enthralling watch -- as a gripping mystery glues the viewer to their metaphorical seat, competent character development and a delicate choice of themes elevate Link Click from an interesting thriller to a touching portrayal of humanity’s virtues and vices, passions and tragedies.
Sci-Fi Meets Mystery in a Unique Take on Time Travel
"First, you only get 12 hours. Second, follow my lead and change nothing. Third, past or future, just let them be." This piece of opening dialogue to Link Click’s Episode 1 serves a dual function: as it lays out the rules of the series’ world, it also foreshadows the core of its drama: changing the past (or the future) can have dire consequences. It’s something an audience acquainted with time travel stories would be familiar with, but Link Click twists the trope to find new avenues for the genre.
Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang are paid by customers to dive into their past and extract valuable information, effectively selling their services as time travel mercenaries. What’s more, their method comes from complementary abilities -- Lu Guang can look at a picture and see what happened around the time it was taken, while Cheng Xiaoshi can enter it. Perhaps closer to fantasy than sci-fi, their powers make for an interesting dynamic that virtually showcases them as a superhero team.
As the pair take on job after job, the show unfolds to reveal both the characters and its central mystery. Despite its simplicity, the structure displays great mastery, as each episode’s self-contained story also progresses the overarching plot and character development. Episode 1 is a brilliant example of this -- as Cheng Xiaoshi dives into Emma’s past, he is confronted with his own feelings for his lost parents, and the audience gets a glimpse of his childhood. At the same time, Lu Guang is revealed as potentially untrustworthy -- after the job is done, he knows that, possibly as a consequence of their meddling, Emma is dead, but he hides this from Cheng Xiaoshi. Why was Emma murdered? How does Cheng Xiaoshi’s past fit into all this? The audience is asked to follow along with the journey.
As the story progresses, the answers are never easily given but need to be earned. The audience is trusted to piece together the details in order to get to the full picture -- little by little, Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi’s pasts are uncovered, their powers are thoroughly explained and the mystery comes alive. In the final episodes, a powerful enemy makes their appearance and is revealed to have similar abilities, providing the series with a cliffhanger finale that's sure to leave the audience wanting more.
A Thriller Deeply Rooted in Human Experience
However, the structure alone wouldn’t carry the series if viewers didn’t care about the characters and their stories. On the surface, Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi are typical 'bishonen' characters, young and beautiful, and they also appeal to the audience’s taste for male bromance, as they challenge each other with conflicting personalities but care for each other deeply -- Lu Guang, the classic 'brooding' type, only seems to dote on Cheng Xiaoshi, who in turn is more emotional and vulnerable.
While these details are certainly part of its appeal, Link Click goes further with its characters. As the series progresses, Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi’s weaknesses are exposed -- one too calculating and cold, the other too emotional and unprotected -- and used to show their characters’ development. By the last episode, Lu Guang has learned the danger of not allowing for the human factor when dealing with people’s lives and emotions, while Cheng Xiaoshi has understood that the job needs him to be somewhat detached and rational. Demonstrating the show’s mastery of narrative, it’s the self-contained episodic stories that serve as a catalyst for this transformation.
Arguably the heart of the show, the 'jobs' that Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi undertake feature a colorful cast of characters with a wide variety of life experiences. Surprisingly moving for a show that seems to focus on sci-fi and thriller elements, the stories deal with family, love, loss, youth, passions and more. From a young woman who moved to the city driven by ambition only to discover that she misses her parents and her quiet life in the countryside, to two friends whose bond was broken by greed and finally restored after years of distrust and hatred, the people that populate Link Click’s world feel well-rounded and extremely realistic.
Perhaps the most touching of all, Episodes 3 and 4 deal with loss and grief, as the show portrays the last day of the victims of a terrible earthquake. In another moving episode, a young man falls in love with the daughter of a martial arts family and fights for her father’s blessing until he becomes an old man. With its sensitive investigation of human relationships -- with all the anger, passion, viciousness and devotion that they can bring out -- Link Click demonstrates that any type of media can hold true meaning and become a valuable experience.
With a lot to look forward to and Season 2 now being announced for 2023, it looks like the audience can hope for another great adventure. Many questions are left unanswered in the final episode and a life is on the line, as well as other characters’ pasts and futures. The only doubt, as with every masterful series, is whether this carefully crafted show can live up to its beautiful first season.
Link Click is available to stream on Crunchyroll.