It's a bit strange, I know, to write a full review for a show's second season without having done the same for its first. Though I suppose I did the same with Jujutsu Kaisen as well, so maybe this just helps me process my thoughts better. Sometimes it takes until I've really spent a lot of time with a show to fully unpack how I feel about it. And while I enjoyed Link Click's first season a lot, it left a lot of questions in the air that left my feelings fairly inconclusive. Not just plot questions, but questions of theme, message, meaning, what it was trying to say with all its time-twisting stories. The ride itself was fun, but this felt like a case where I really needed to see the destination as well. Only then would I really be able to nail down my thoughts on Link Click as a whole.

Well, now I've reached that destination. Mostly; there's a third season on the way eventually, but enough of those big questions are answered by the end of season 2 that I'm able to sort out my thoughts a little better. And man, what a fascinating, frustrating, singular experience this turned out to be.

In case you need a recap, Link Click is the story of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, two young men with the power to travel into the past through photographs and help resolve their clients' lingering regrets. Maybe they need to find some long-forgotten secret, or pass on a final message the client never got the chance to. But whatever the case, the most important rule remains the same: do not change the past. No matter how tragic or unfair a person's life as been, meddling with the timeline to try and make things better will only result in further tragedy. At least that's how it seems until the end of season 1, when it's revealed that someone- or perhaps, a larger group- has been wreaking havoc with their own photo-based superpowers to ensure these tragic fates are brought to their inevitable conclusion. Thus, season 2 is all about tracking down the people responsible, unraveling one big conspiracy to stop the criminals before they cause any more damage.

So already that's a pretty big change from season 1. Instead of spending time with a bunch of episodic small-scale mysteries that freely bounce between various tones, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang are now focused on this singular case in a season-long ongoing supernatural crime drama. Thankfully, there's enough excuses to jump into the past that we still get a decent chunk of that genre-mixing experience that I loved about season 1. We may not have as much variety as before- there's no love stories or sports anime subplots here- but the mechanics of time-leaping are still pretty essential to how the story unfolds and how the characters come to understand their place in it. What IS missing, though- arguably one of season 1's most important qualities that pretty much vanishes in season 2- is the exploration of the morality of messing with time itself.

See, one of the first season's thorniest conflicts was whether or not is was right, or safe, for Cheng Xiaoshi to change the pasts of the people he jumped back into. So many of his and Lu Guang's clients had truly miserable lives, and there were many times he felt like he had a chance- no, a responsibility- to take action in their past that would send their present down a better path. But it was never as easy as that, and often times, his attempts to make things better would just end up making them worse. And I'm really unsure how to feel about Link Click's handling of this concept. Sure, I know the reason they can't just use time travel to fix everything: once you give your characters the power to rewrite any mistake, the stakes pretty much become nonexistent. For the sake of a good story, Cheng kind of has to be doomed to not be able to make a difference in the past. But there's a point at which the world starts to feel actively unfair with how it twists every single attempt he makes to force a tragic result regardless. Is changing the past bad because you can't predict how it will shape the future, or has the universe just cosmically ordained that certain people will suffer and die no matter what? Because only one of those answers is compelling to me, and I'm not convinced it's the answer Link Click has decided to go with.

And that was one of the answers I was most hoping to get in season 2. What, exactly, does this story have to say about messing with time? Is it actually engaging with that question honestly, or is it simply forcing the answer it prefers with cheap moralizing and forced plot turns? Unfortunately, that question remains basically unaddressed throughout season 2. In fact, most of those broader questions and philosophy and character journeys from season 1 take a backseat to the mechanics of the plot in season 2. Season 1's greatest strength was how well it balanced its sci-fi and thriller elements with the humanity at the core of its cast, using its time-leaping to explore not just Cheng's character but the countless ways people choose to move on from the past or remain stuck in it, or draw power from it. With season 2's narrowed focus, though, it really only does that for its central antagonists, and basically every other character is pure plot machinery. Compared to how lush and lived-in the countless snapshots of memory we visited in season 1 felt, the world of season 2 barely feels like it exists outside the confines of the plot.

My guess is, the intention here was to choose quality over quantity. Instead of getting lots of brief insights into the lives of various different people, we spend the whole season digging into just the central antagonists' past and fleshing it out in as much detail as possible. And to its credit, this seasons' villains, a pair of psychic siblings who parallel Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang's brotherly relationship. Their past is easily Link Click's darkest tale yet, a story of abuse, neglect, trauma and social toxicity that at times feels like a darkest-possible-timeline mirror to that question of using your powers to fix a bad situation only to make it a million times worse. And it's not subtle about connecting that darkness with the worst of China's familial culture, which I do not know enough about to discuss with any authority, but let's just say that basically any man in this season who tries to exercise his authority over a woman ends up paying the price for it. More than anything, it reminds me of the way Gen Urobuchi tackles misogyny in his work, exploring how attitudes of patriarchal domination twist people into monsters while everyone in close proximity suffers for it- even when you think you're doing it with noble intentions.

Sadly, as compelling as that central hook is, the rest of the season really suffers around it. The problem with Link Click introducing new superpowered characters is it kind of forces itself to get trapped in the mechanics of it all. Season 1 got away with using time jumps mostly just as the backbone for its various character studies, but now the show has to actually deal with how all these various powers work and interact, and considering how many of these powers involve messing with time, it doesn't take long for this shit to get real convoluted real fast. It's a headache trying to keep track of the rules behind the antagonists' powers, and it feels like no matter what the answer is, there's at least one scenario in the show that completely breaks those rules. And don't get me started on how many head-smacking contrivances this season pulls to force its plot into the shape it wants. You're telling me you've got this person imprisoned who you know has some unknown power you're unprepared to deal with, and you let her just waltz out of security camera sight without a ten-man gun squad keeping an eye on her at all times? Are you high???

Overall, Link Click season 2 is just messy. It's a big swing that takes big chances with the foundation season 1 established, but it doesn't hit every pitch and you really feel the disjoint where it strikes out. It's a good thing the art and animation are still as superb as they were in season 1; turns out, an expertly-choreographed hand-to-hand fight scene can help even the dumbest plot points go down easier. But the series overall feels on much shakier ground than it did at the end of season 1, and I hope season 3 will be able to right that ship. I'd hate for a series this promising to become just another disappointing failure to establish Chinese donghua as a true artistic powerhouse.