Brief Summary
This video analyzes the effective use of the ending theme in the anime "Link Click" to enhance the show's intensity and impact. The video focuses on how the first 15 seconds of the ending theme are strategically used as an "insert ending" to create suspense, signal upcoming events, and act as a countdown, significantly the viewing experience.
- The ending theme is used as an "insert ending" in every episode, creating suspense.
- The first 15 seconds of the song act as a countdown, signaling the end of the episode and upcoming events.
- The musical design of the ending theme, with its dark melody and jarring sounds, intensifies the viewing experience.
The video introduces "Link Click," a Chinese anime about two men who use photographs to travel back in time and complete tasks for clients. The show involves serious consequences related to time travel, leading to frequent cliffhangers. The main point of the video is to discuss the show's ending theme and how it enhances the viewing experience.
"Link Click" revolves around two protagonists with the ability to travel back in time through photographs. One physically enters the past, becoming the photo's subject, while the other provides guidance telepathically. They operate a service that allows clients to alter past events, which leads to significant consequences typical of time travel narratives. The show is characterized by numerous cliffhangers.
Ending themes are underappreciated but can significantly enhance a show. They occur at the end of episodes, which usually contain important details, context, or cliffhangers. The first few seconds of an ending theme are crucial because viewers often skip outros. Many anime creatively use their ending sequences, and the video will focus on "Link Click" as a prime example of an ending theme used to its full potential.
The ending theme of "Link Click" is an "insert ending," meaning the song's beginning is inserted into the end of the episode while the scene is still playing out. This technique is used in three ways: first, the song accompanies intense action or revelations; second, it starts as something crazy begins, leaving viewers on a cliffhanger; and third, it plays during a calm moment, conditioning viewers to expect something to happen.
The first 15 seconds of the song act as a signal or countdown at the end of each episode. This signals the episode's end and creates anticipation, especially when nothing is happening. The audience becomes conditioned to expect something, and this countdown intensifies as the series progresses. The audience and the show develop a built-in timer, creating suspense. This is most effective when the scene is calm, making the impending event more nerve-wracking.
"Link Click" is about time travel, and the song's beginning fits this theme well, with the 15-second countdown aligning with the idea of time and its consequences. The musical design of this section is also brilliant.
The main melody is dark and mysterious, played at a low pitch with jarring synthetic sounds. Around seven seconds in, a high-pitched, sharp line contrasts with the rest, starting quietly and growing louder and more painful. This abrupt cutoff into the last section and these jarring melodies intensify the episode's ending. The sound effect at the end, a disconnected phone over a sped-up ticking clock, adds to the stress.
The ending theme had a strong impact, causing the speaker's heart rate to spike even when listening outside the show. It is a personal favorite example of an anime using its ending theme to boost intensity.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “The Most Intense 15 Seconds of Any Anime Song”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 [Music] okay we've got two groups of people for most of you you're like okay that's just the beginning of a song it sounds pretty intense sure but I don't know about most intense 15 seconds of any anime song Ah that's kind of a stretch but for the people who've seen the show link click there might just be a little bit of poo poo in your pants right now just a little bit to be brief and spoiler free link click is a Chinese anime about two guys who have the power to travel back in time through photographs one of them does the actual time traveling and basically becomes the person who took the photo at the time it was taken and the other is like the guide who kind of telepathically tells the other guy what to do and together they run a service where people can kind of come to them
0:47 with a photo and get them to do all sorts of things back in time so that's like getting information sending a message to someone from the past things like that and just like with any other time travel show or movie that you've probably seen before they deal with some pretty serious Revelations and consequences when it comes to [ __ ] around with time so give even all that you can probably imagine that this is a show that is going to have plenty of Cliffhangers and oh my Lord doesn't have a lot of them and with that I'm finally going to get to the point of the video which is to talk about this Show's ending theme I really love ending themes I think they're incredibly underappreciated and they can really add to a show so much because they take place at the end of an episode and what happens at the ends of episodes usually something right it's not gonna be nothing the end of the episode is
1:32 typically after you've been given some kind of important details or context about the story or even a cliffhanger which is a huge thing that can differentiate endings from openings and specifically the first few seconds of any ending theme are going to be the most important because that's when people will actually still be listening or watching because let's be real people are [ __ ] pounding on the skipped outro Button as soon as it pops up and because of all this we get to see a lot of really cool ways that different anime play around with how they use their ending sequences especially at the beginning of the song so I'm planning on making another gigantic video just on anime endings in the near future going into all of this stuff in detail but for this video I'm just going to be focusing in on link click which is one of my absolute favorite examples of a Show's ending theme being used to the fullest extent and significantly elevating the
2:18 show's impact as a result first of all this ending theme is what I'm gonna call an insert ending which means that the beginning of the song is inserted into the end of the episode while it's still playing out you've probably seen a lot of other shows do this for special episodes but link click does it for every episode and I've noticed three different ways that this technique has been used in the show the first way that this is used is when some crazy [ __ ] is already happening someone's fighting or some kind of crazy Revelation has been revealed but then the song starts playing and it accompanies the crazy [ __ ] that's happening all the way to the end of the episode and helps to elevate it number two is when some crazy [ __ ] has just started happening as the song starts playing it plays through and leaves you on an evil Cliffhanger and then you go punch a hole in your wall because you're mad at a cliffhanger and
3:05 number three is where it starts to get cool so far in cases one and two there's some crazy [ __ ] happening right the only difference really is is it already happening or did it just start happening number three is where nothing has happened yet you're just having a chill time but then the song starts playing and because you've already gotten used to cases one and two you're now conditioned to expect something just because of the song the first 15 seconds of the song act as kind of a signal or a countdown at the end of every episode it works to signal that the episode is over but also to Signal especially if nothing's happening that oh [ __ ] something's gonna happen in fact regardless of whether something was happening or not by the time the 15 seconds are over you're definitely saying oh [ __ ] in some kind of way now I just mentioned that the 15 seconds are
3:51 like a countdown and the strength of this countdown only gets stronger as the series goes on because the audience has been hearing this little tune over and over again at the end of every episode and just after a few times they've pretty much already learned the song so they know when it's going to jump to the End Credits based on the music Alone the audience and the show have a built-in timer imagine a scene where a bomb's about to go off and you don't know what's going to happen only for this to start playing what this does is up the intensity by putting a musical timer in your head it doesn't give you any answers you still don't know what's gonna happen with this bomb but now there's just a little bit more poo in your pants but like I mentioned where this is most effective isn't when you're already in an intense scene no it's when nothing's happening nothing's happening everyone and everything is chill but this song starts playing and suddenly
4:37 you know you know that something is gonna happen in the next 15 seconds but you don't know what until it happens but those precious seconds until that point are some of the most intense and nerve-wracking seconds you could ever experience watching a television show it's like if you were just sitting in a park or something just hanging out when you suddenly see a timer pop up in the air and it's counting down from 15 seconds and then you start [ __ ] yourself because you have no idea what's gonna happen when this timer hits zero and this intensity that's caused by this short 15 second section of a song is exactly why I love this ending theme and it perfectly represents how powerful and impactful a well-placed ending song can be a couple other things to mention too link click of course is a show about time travel in the beginning section of this song Fits that theming really well because the whole 15 second countdown
5:23 thing fits within the whole time and time travel consequences idea perfectly even the sound and musical design of this 15 second section outside of the context of the show is brilliant now I'm not musically educated enough to give you a full professional breakdown of this but I can point some stuff out at least the main Melody is really dark and mysterious sounding and it plays at a fairly low pitch while accompanied by some synthetic sounds that I can only really describe as jarring then at around 7 seconds in you get a line that comes in from the background it's really high pitched and sharp sounding to contrast heavily with everything else that's been playing and it starts out really quiet then as you keep going it gets louder and higher pitched and louder and higher
6:08 pitched until it's almost painful to keep listening to it because it's basically screeching at you foreign [Music] and then it abruptly cuts off into the last section everything I just mentioned is a key defining feature of this song that helps it perfectly play the role of the intensifier and again since this is being played during the episode itself and not the end credits these jarring and stressful Melodies and sounds are directly affecting what's going on at the end of every episode of the show so this is leading up to some insane plot twist the audience gets a sense of what kind of thing might be coming through these musical cues whether they know about it consciously or not and to top it all off the sound effect that you hear at the end that leads into the credits is a disconnected phone it
6:54 signals someone not being on the other end of a phone call right which could mean all kinds of [ __ ] that really [ __ ] with our brains [Music] and it's playing on top of a ticking clock that's sped up to match the beat of the song if that's not stress inducing I don't know what the [ __ ] is and of course the rest of the song is an absolute Bop too [Music] but regardless I definitely still encourage listening to that even if you don't want to watch the show this ending theme had such a strong impact on me that anytime I listen to it even outside of the show my heart rate still spikes it's just so [ __ ] good man it really is oh my God it's so good how did they make it so good this is probably my
7:40 personal favorite example of an anime using its ending theme to boost the intensity of the show but obviously this isn't going to be the only example of this so if you've got other examples that you want to mention definitely leave them in the comments okay that's it get the [ __ ] out of here you should really stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop stop thinking about it while you're mine holy [ __ ] this ending theme is so good
