Overall thoughts on Link Click as well as currently.

For context, I started watching Link Click Summer of 2024 and I absolutely love this show. I remember coming in with almost no expectations. (I saw a post of someone reccomending a donghua and the way they described Link Click was something a long the lines of: A gay couple solves cases by time traveling through time). I thought it would be a wholesome, slice of life, story with some deep or depressing moments. I was right about that, except we cut down the wholesome cutesy bit and amp up the depressor meter.

Anyways, I loved loved love Link Click from the moment I started watching. S1 changed a lot of my personal opinions or the beliefs on the way we interact with people that we don't know. It also like weirdly changed some of my belief on some of Chinese society (propaganda goes deep in the U.S. lmao) I thought it highlighted a lot of good morals and stories that were all very human and personal. S1 of Link Click is by far my favorite season, and very unique and welldone overall when it comes to stories in general.

Then I watched s2. I did not like s2 as much 😭I still like Link Click s2, but it has a different objective than the first one. I felt like our MC's and their emotions about the cases that they are working on or just themselves decreased overall this season in order to focus more on advancing the plot. Personally, I didn't care much for the fight scenes and I was just waiting for them to be over. I still liked the big human stories similar to how it was in s1 (Chen Bin, The Li Family story, Qian Jin), I also did like the time travel shananigans and thought that it was a really good way to set up future big storylines that would be more complex. At the end, I took s2 to be more of a transition season (setting things up, introducing important characters, etc.) rather than something more of like a big thematic storyline that what I thought it would be in the beginning. Part of my disatisfaction was probably the opening (That opening was like so fricking cool like omg. I thought that like CXS was going to get stuck at some point within space and time and lu guang was going to have to get him back while the villain (still possesing QL was coming after them and forming an evil big plan. Like I had so many thoughts of how it would go and was disapointed it was not what I got lmao)

Anyways, then we move to the Bridon Arc. It has an overall different vibe than s1 and s2, but I still really enjoy it and it is the season I most often go back to. I love that we focus more on our main characters. I remember I would be waiting for the new episode on thursday night at 10:00 pm and that the next day I would be harrasing my friends by saying, "Another Link Click Banger!! The episode was soo good..."I liked seeing CXS's backstory and him trying to find out his past. I love the music this season. Like S1 and S2, the humanistic missions are also very well done this season (artist girl from ep 1, the scammer plotline, Wang Qing's story) They were all very well done. I think this season did a better job mixing the plot with the single issues than in s2 and I really enjoyed it. The thing I did not particularly like was the addition of new villains/characters. I don't feel like they were needed, and they don't feel as real compared to other side characters that we have had before. The main reason I loved Link Click was because of how real the stories felt and in the Bridon arc we are starting to distance ourselves more from that if that makes sense. That being said, I mostly brushed that criticism because overall, I still love this season and I still think it does an amazing job. I was excited to see where the story goes.

S3 up till now. Honestly, I still prefer this season over season 2, but it still feels like we are deviating more from the realness. The issue that I had in the Bridon arc with the new villains feeling a bit out of place, this season only increases that value and not just with the addition of new characters. As other people in this subreddit have said, S3 has more of a comedic value. CXS acting dumb, like while QL and LQ tease him, he is not like an idiot, and I feel like the show is exagerating that small aspect of his character. Sometimes in the episodes the characters will say something so out there that like it is obviously the wrong or horrible thing to say because it reveals so much, but the show treats that as normal (Ex: Jae saying he can tell who has powers. Like why would he say that? He is just revealing his hand and making the others distrust him and he plays it off like just a joke when like literally nobody would mention that.) Not only that, this season has just felt slow in general. It is especially noticable since we come from faster paced stories in Link Click. However, this season is not all horrible or bad. Lu Guang's character is really good this season. I love the development they have done for him. It feels natural, his actions and what he does, and I am excited to see where things go with him. Not only that, but the artstyle, animation, music (especially the music) is done very very well and you can tell they have put in a lot of effort for this show.

Miscallaneous things: Weirdly enough, I never had an issue understanding the timeline (except for some of the time travel shenanigans in s2) I have seen a few people in the sub ask or wonder what is going on or the timeline of things, so if anybody has questions on that I could prob answer. Also the chibi episodes are very funny and cute and I love them so much. I do prefer the chibi episodes post s1. I don't know why I love them so much, but they are just so cute and funny and like I love it.

All that said, I am excited to see where this show goes. I can't wait to see the reveals that happen. I will be tuning in for the next ep tn (10:00PM thursday cdt time) Link Click has been something I have talked about so so much and I thought I would finally make a post about it, like my thoughts on the current and past development. My hopes for future things, etc. There has been a lot of discussions recently, and I am honestly glad people are able to share their thoughts freely in this fandom (from what I have seen at least). I hope this continues ^^