Regrets.
Trust.
Fear.

No matter how much we think we understand about ourselves or others, we don’t always fully grasp who we are, what we’re capable of, or the people in our lives.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the photos we leave behind.

Welcome to the Time Photo Shop, where all clients need is a photograph and a request they want to fulfill. With a high-five and a twelve-hour window, shop owner Cheng Xiaoshi vanishes into the picture and assumes the identity of the person associated with it while his partner, Lu Guang, directs what Cheng Xiaoshi says and does. The goal is to complete their mission without changing the past.

It seems simple, but if there is anything the first season of Link Click taught us, it’s that nothing is simple and nothing is as it seems.

An original Chinese donghua animated by Haoliners Animation League, Link Click 2 returns viewers to the wild nail-biting time-traveling mystery that left them whiplashed in the first season.

The first two episodes waste no time, hurling our leads, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, back into the turmoil and emotional desperation they were left in. Lu Guang is on the brink of death while Cheng Xiaoshi is left facing the perpetrator, their possessed friend, Qiao Ling.

When the first episode of Season 1 aired, I knew Link Click was special. The people behind this series know how to tell emotion- and character-driven narratives. It isn’t simply an animation; it’s magic.

Like Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi’s abilities, the series draws viewers into a vortex of feelings similar to how Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi are pulled into a photograph. Viewers find themselves stepping into the characters’ shoes.

An overwhelming sense of regret permeates the first season, one that never fades, even in the finale. It left me reeling during the end credits, my stomach twisted by the need to go back and change things. It left me standing inside Cheng Xiaoshi’s body. Scared. Unsure.

Helpless.

The regret from the first season seeps into the second, but with it, there’s also an overwhelming helplessness and hopelessness.

Again, I am left standing in the main leads’ shoes, drowning in Cheng Xiaoshi’s trauma and vulnerability and Lu Guang’s stoic endurance.

And for two episodes, I couldn’t breathe.

The series doesn’t allow you to catch your breath. The antagonists are always one step ahead. Death is everywhere. No one is safe.

And yet, despite its fast pace, Link Click 2 never loses what makes it so potent, its character-driven ability to swamp viewers with the need to swim toward the surface of a murky, emotional ocean that keeps trying to drown them.

The mystery isn’t just in the abilities each of them have and the powers the antagonist seems to share, but in the secrets that are evidently there.

While Cheng Xiaoshi undoubtedly steals the spotlight with his extroverted and frantic energy, Lu Guang captures the imagination. He’s as much a mystery as the assailant they’re facing, adding even more depth and layers to a series that is already poignantly deep.

I cannot recommend Link Click enough. I ride the high of their human emotions in every episode while racking my brain and heart for answers. I feel battered and bruised but also buoyed by the connection that keeps Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang together.

While Link Click is not a BL, the bromance conquers the heart. Their relationship is romantic on a different level, making it impossible to imagine them apart or with anyone else. And while that’s one of the key draws to the series, it’s also one of the things that scares me the most. Strong connections often create the strongest heartaches, and it’s evident the writers behind Link Click aren’t the type to hold back.

Along with the regret that permeates the series, the helplessness that steals my breath, and the undeniable chemistry that keeps me coming back for more, Link Click promises to break me. But I also hope it puts me back together.

It’s this hope that keeps me swimming toward the surface.

Link Click 2 is as powerful in its animation and music as the first season. No stones are left unturned. The opening music theme and credits as well as the end theme and credits are vivid and eerily hypnotic. Even more tantalizing is the fact that the opening song ‘Vortex,’ written and composed by the band Bai Sha JAWS, is just as potent played in reverse as it is played forward. It uniquely displays what drives the series, that whether we remain in the present or go back to the past, we’re still left inside a vortex we’re never quite able to grasp.

For a series that pulls you into the screen as strongly as it draws Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang into photos, check out Link Click 1 and 2 on Crunchyroll or Bilibili.

I’ve fallen into the screen, and I don’t want to come back out.

Rating- 4.5 out of 5