Shiguang Dailiren: Yingdu Pian

This little side story takes some time to wrap your head around. Especially when watching it on a streaming service that provides weird subtitles (looking at you crunchyroll). But if time is taken to digest it and do a lot of rewinding it starts to make more sense. The plot reveals and twists are in true Link Click fashion. But the vibes still felt different from season one and season two. Don't expect it to be exactly like what you've watched before. But I believe the true season 3 will be better off having the room to breathe now that Bridon Arc has happened now ... that we have been introduced to most if not all the important characters. There is a lot going on in the show but it got me hyped for the next season.

Compared to previous offerings of this title, this arc leaves me a bit perplexed.

Art work was about the same. Solid, with good background work and great character designs. The animation wasn't quite as good, but it's a lot better than most animation out there today. Something of a quibble at best.

Lots of new characters introduced, but frankly the development comes up hard and short. There's just not enough episodes to do them all justice.

The shortness of an arc, rather than a full season, hurts the narrative as well. While what is presented is intriguing enough, things are much too rushed. The ending, ... while not bad, seems to be a crash landing. It opened up a lot more questions than it answered.

Watched the sub and usually I don't care for Mandarin. This VA cast did a decent job of conveying the emotions in a scene. The direction was fair, with the overall rushed nature making things a bit rough to tie up nicely.

While I hugely loved the first two seasons, I feel a bit shortchanged by this arc. While the seasons got A grades from me, and I didn't find this too obnoxious, I can't see fit to give it better than 84/100 B for all the loose ends it leaves dangling. Here's hoping we get a real season soon to tie up the dangling plotlines.

Pretty much the only time a rushed final episode has downgraded my score from a 8 to a ⁷ (was tempted to put 6).

This is a prequel-sequel that leaves off from the cliffhanger at the end of season 2, where Lu Guang travels back in time to save Cheng Xiaoshi's life. It uses Butterfly-Effect time travel logic to send the boys off to Bridon (London) to uncover Cheng Ciaoshi's family secrets.

There's a lot of cute character moments and interesting plot twosts that make the forst 5 episodes engaging, but my main problem is this:

It's an "arc" that resolves nothing. Previous Link Click seasons has cliffhanger ... finale episodes but they told a self contained story. This does not. The Final Episode resolved itself through a shitton of Deus Ex Machina - characters having abilities they had not previously been shown to have etc. Without explanation, foreshadowing or buildup. It's meant to be cool and thicken the plot, but it just feels cheap. Like a pitch for the next season (which will be the official 24-ep 3rd Season).

This is a half-season labelled as a side story, but even that inplies it tells a self contained story. It's a very entertaining side story mind you, but don't go in looking any kind of closure on anything, is all.

Oh and as ever, the backgrounds and IP/ED are brill. Thanks LAN Studio.