Shiguang Dailiren

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, it holds an infinite amount of secrets. These are secrets that only Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang are able to find. In a small shop called "Time Photo Studio," the two friends provide a special service: using their extraordinary powers that let them enter photographs, they jump into pictures brought to them by clients in order to grant their wishes. Through the eyes of the photographer, they live through the events surrounding the picture and try to decipher how to solve their client's request.

But every time they jump into a picture, they take a great risk. One wrong move and they could alter the future of the person who took the picture... and possibly countless other events too. So when the events they are forced to live through in these pictures start to become personal, it will take the utmost strength to push their feelings aside and focus on accomplishing the task they were paid to do.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Cheng, Xiaoshi Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki Japanese

Lu, Guang Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Qiao, Ling Supporting

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Wu, Lihua Supporting

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Xu, Shanshan Supporting

Lynn Japanese

Chen, Bin Supporting

Morita, Ryousuke Japanese

Liu, Min Supporting

Kawanishi, Kengo Japanese

Xiao, Li Supporting

Sakaguchi, Shuuhei Japanese

Lin, Zhen Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Li, Doudou Supporting

Mochida, Himari Japanese

Li, Haoling Director, Script, Planning

LAN Episode Director, Chief Animation Director, Character Design, Animation Director

Nolan, Diana Script

Bai Sha JAWS Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Oct 22, 2025

bbbbbbbbbbba

Recommended

Holy fucking shit do I have to say this is the best shows I have seen in this whole year it’s so amazing how one show of just 11 episodes can change you so much I can’t believe every twist that this show had this is incredible amazing it had me with my eyes wide open the whole time. The story of this show is so unique I’ve never even seen it anywhere else and it’s so crazy how just one expedidor of a persons life can deeply motivate and change you it’s so crazy this is a literal masterpiece. I live the art of ... the backgrounds you really do feel immersed into their series and the animation it’s just incredible.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Dec 1, 2025

RemanTheArchean

Mixed Feelings

This review covers the first 2 seasons, as well as the "Bridon Arc".

The show is composed of roughly two parts: the mystery-thriller that's mostly centered around the time travel mechanic, and the melodrama that's more interested in side stories of various characters.

At first, the latter element gets much more screentime, with the time travel being little more than a means to go from one story to the next. The first half-dozen episodes almost take on this "melodrama of the week" quality, which, uh, if you've read my Violet Evergarden review (https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=574604) you'd know I'm not a big fan of. I think episodic melodrama ... is particularly hard to do well, and while the scenarios here aren't quite as unbelievable as they were in Violet Evergarden, I still didn't find them particularly engaging, although I admit this might just be a "personal preferences" thing.

On the other hand is the mystery-thriller time travel stuff, which gets more attention as the series progresses. It does this part quite well, at least for the first two seasons. The black-haired protagonist named Cheng Xiaoshi gets 12 hours to enter a person's body and pry useful information. There's also the white-haired protagonist named Lu Guang can see the future and guide him in keeping the past how it's supposed to play out. It's a mix of the Butterfly Effect where altering events can have unexpected (generally negative) consequences, with bits of Steins;gate in how only "critical moments" really matter. It's an interesting enough gimmick to carry a story, and the show really comes alive when the mechanics are a focus or when they're used in creative ways. The show is also helped by the characters mostly acting like adults -- a relatively rare thing in anime. I have some minor quibbles with how Cheng keeps getting emotional and comes very close to changing the past in ways the could ripple out to being Bad, but he doesn't actually go through with them for the most part.

At the start of season 1, the show is roughly 70% melodrama and 30% mystery, while by the end of season 1 those ratios are flipped to 30% melodrama and 70% mystery. It continues with that pace into season 2, which is when the show is firing on all cylinders. It becomes almost a cat-and-mouse like Death Note, and I was hooked. A typical setup at that point is to show a scene without context, and have stuff that seems crazy or unbelievable happen, then it goes back and explains how everything worked. It's a good formula that maintains suspense and quickly answers the questions it brings up. None of the reveals feel like BS as they're typically only moderate extensions of the knowledge we already have of how the powers work, peoples' motivations, etc. while also doing more than enough to keep me guessing. That said, the melodrama also takes a turn for the worse here. Season 1's melodrama is fairly varied, but I hope you're fine with abused women being utilized as a plot device from S2 onwards, because this show REALLY likes to do that over and over. You'll see women beaten, abused, strangled, nearly raped, screamed at, and even murdered. It almost became a running gag, with whenever I saw a new female character introduced I would think to myself "I wonder when she'll get treated like a pinata", and I'd end up being correct most of the time. While S1's melodrama was merely "boring", S2's became outright repulsive, which was only helped somewhat by it having a lower screentime priority. Overall though, Season 2 is a decent package.

The same cannot be said of the Bridon Arc, which MAL lists as a "side story", but it's 8 episodes (6 episodes really, but the first episode is a 3-in-1) worth of fairly critical information, so I doubt you'll be able to skip it. I don't know if some amateurs took over or what, but the show basically forgets how to do a mystery-thriller. The way it's supposed to go is question → partial answer → bigger question → partial answer. But here, all we get is question → question → question → question... Minor spoilers here, but to demonstrate what I mean I think an example would be helpful: in S3E1 a redhead character is revealed to be a bad guy since he attacks Lu Guang for reasons that aren't explained, then Lu Guang goes back in time to stop something that isn't explained, and he encounters the redhead who's all too eager to help the protagonists for reasons that aren't explained, then in E6 the readhead turns on them for reasons that aren't explained, using a nonlethal takedown on Cheng for reasons that aren't explained, then demands a macguffin (the purpose of which is not exlained), but then he also has a heart attack in the middle of the fight that instakills him for reasons that aren't explained, and then it's revealed he actually survived for reasons that aren't explained. You may have noticed I used the phrase "for reasons that aren't explained" over half a dozen times, and yeah, the whole season is 8 episodes worth of setup for a payoff that never materializes. That leaves entire scenes where I'm just thinking "What is happening? WTF is any of this!?!" Obviously the explanation and payoff might be coming in later seasons, but it's still obnoxiously poor pacing to do something like this. Having questions that are answered in later seasons is fine, but there's a limit. I need to have at least some semblance of a grasp on what's going on for me to be invested, and this failed that check hard.

Two other notes:

First, the show has some definite homoerotic undertones between the two male leads. They're both typical prettyboys and are way more handsy with each other than non-gay friends ever are in the real world, while also showing next to 0 interest in any of the female characters. As of now nothing concrete has happened, but there's definitely something going on underneath the surface.

Second, the show has an overuse of fake cliffhangers, i.e. cliffhangers that imply something, but then the next episode comes around and it's not true, or it gets resolved very quickly -- often in under a minute. The end of season 1 is a particularly bad example of this. You can only do that once or twice before I become completely inured to it and reflexively start to think "yeah, nah, bullshit, nothing like that will actually happen" in a resentful internal tone every time it occurs. I guess they decided they had to keep the Gen Z ADHD kiddies from getting bored halfway through the season and start watching TikToks instead, but I really wish these shows would just have a little more faith in their audience.

So overall, this show is very much a mixed bag. It has some great elements and some not so great elements. I'd recommend not watching the Bridon Arc until Season 3 airs, and then just treat them both as one jumbo season or something. Hopefully we'll get some payoff, as the Bridon Arc certainly left a bad taste in my mouth with the way it ended.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 16, 2024

ktogmm

Not Recommended

Preliminary (5/11 eps)

this show is genuinely one of the worst animes I've ever watched and even got me to write my first review on MAL. I'll keep it short and simple, nobody is here to read long essays on one person's watching experience.

Storytelling - This is the BIGGEST thing in any show and it is absolutely horrid here. It's a bunch of mini stories compiled into one show and the fact that a good chunk of these "mini stories" are <1 episode in length, there's nothing to be resonated or feel a certain type of way towards these stories. Throughout the show, it builds up slowly the ... main plot of the show, but it started off with bare info.

No proper introduction to these characters, how their shop came along, and how Qiao came along to work in the shop, and so much more viewer questions. If you leave essential info like this and push it towards a deeper part of the story, it doesn't produce that "mystery" reaction. It produces boredom and acts as if we already know these characters coming into this show... which we don't.

Visuals - Animation was well designed, but their formatting by putting black bars was completely unnecessary and ruined it. This is not a movie, what was the point of black bars? To add an imaginary cinematic effect throughout the whole season? 😂

Have nothing else to talk about. Everything else like SFX, characters, etc were somewhat decent. Dropped this anime and have 0 plans on picking it back up, waste of time and there's way better shows to spend your time on then this. Genuinely don't know how this is so high rated, this show is a snoozefest.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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