Link Click

Link Click is a Chinese animated series, often called a donghua, which is the Chinese word for animation. Li Haoling wrote and directed it, and Studio LAN made it with help from Haoliners Animation League. The first season streamed on Bilibili, a big Chinese video site, from April 30 to July 9, 2021. It has 12 episodes, one of them a special numbered "5.5". The show is in Mandarin, and Crunchyroll later released an English dub in 2022. It became one of the best-known Chinese animated shows around the world.

The story is about two young men who run a tiny business, the Time Photo Studio, in a busy modern city. From the outside, the shop looks like nobody uses it. But its owners have a secret. Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang can use photographs to step into the past. Clients come to them with regrets, or with questions about something that happened long ago, and bring a photo from that moment.

Their powers work as a team. Cheng Xiaoshi jumps into the photo and takes the place of the person who took the picture. For a while he lives inside that person's body. He sees what they saw, and he can feel their memories and feelings. Lu Guang stays behind and guides him. Lu Guang can see what happened in the twelve hours after the photo was taken, so he warns his partner about what is coming. There are firm rules: each job gives them only twelve hours and one chance. Most of all, they must not change what already happened in the past.

The two partners are very different. Cheng Xiaoshi is warm, quick to act, and feels deeply for the people he helps. This is his strength, but it also makes it hard for him to follow the rules when he sees someone suffer. Lu Guang is calm, careful, and serious, and he keeps the plan on track. Their friend Qiao Ling, who has known Cheng Xiaoshi since they were children, owns the building the studio is in. She also finds most of their clients and handles the business side.

The early episodes feel like separate cases. Each one shows a different client with a different painful memory, such as a lost love or a family problem. Little by little, the cases start to link together, and the show becomes a tense thriller with real danger. It mixes gentle, sad moments with mystery and crime, so it can be moving one minute and scary the next. Because the story is about memory and choices, it often asks a simple but hard question: if you could see the past again, could you just watch, or would you try to fix it?

Critics praised the show's animation, music, and tension. The opening song, "Dive Back in Time" by Jaws, became popular with fans. The series went on to get more seasons, a prequel arc, an audio drama, a stage musical, and live-action versions.