🔗 Share this article

A pair of teenagers experience a intimate, tender instant at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air swimming pool after hours. As they float as one, hanging under the stars in the quietness of the night, the sequence portrays the ephemeral, heady thrill of teenage love, utterly engrossed in the moment, ramifications forgotten.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the core of the movie. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale became the focus, and all the contextual information and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes proved to be largely irrelevant. Despite being a official installment within the series, Reze Arc provides a more accessible entry point for first-time viewers — even if they missed its single episode. This method brings advantages, but it also hinders a portion of the urgency of the film’s story.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a universe where Devils represent particular dangers (including ideas like Aging and Darkness to terrifying entities like cockroaches or World War II). After being betrayed and murdered by the yakuza, Denji forms a contract with his faithful devil-dog, his pet, and returns from the deceased as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the power to completely destroy Devils and the horrors they signify from reality.

Thrust into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, the hero meets a new character — a alluring barista concealing a deadly secret — sparking a tragic clash between the two where love and survival collide. The movie picks up immediately following the first season, delving into Denji’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, Makima, compelling him to choose between passion, loyalty, and survival.

An Independent Love Story Amidst a Broader Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a lovers-to-enemies story, with our fallible protagonist Denji becoming enamored with his counterpart almost immediately upon meeting. He is a lonely young man looking for love, which renders him vulnerable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly independent. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and ensures the love story is at the center, rather than weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, particularly since such details is crucial to the overall plot.

Despite the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s difficult not to sympathize with him. He’s after all a teenager, stumbling his way through a reality that’s distorted his understanding of morality. His intense craving for love portrays him like a lovesick dog, although he’s prone to growling, biting, and making a mess along the way. Reze is a ideal match for Denji, an effective femme fatale who targets her prey in our protagonist. Viewers hope to see the main character earn the affection of his love interest, even if she is obviously concealing a secret from him. Thus when her real identity is revealed, you still cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow make it work, even though internally, it is known a happy ending is not truly in the plan. Therefore, the stakes fail to seem as intense as they should be since their relationship is fated. It doesn’t help that the movie serves as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving little room for a romance like this among the more grim developments that fans know are coming soon.

Stunning Visuals and Artistic Execution

The film’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering impressive eye candy even before the action begins. Including cars to tiny office appliances, 3D models enhance realism and detail to every scene, making the animated figures pop beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often highlights its digital elements and changing backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed finale, where such elements, though not unappealing, become easier to spot. Such fluid, ever-shifting backgrounds make the movie’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Still, the method shines brightest when it’s invisible, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Concluding Thoughts and Wider Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good starting place, likely leaving first-time audiences pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Presenting a standalone narrative restricts the stakes of what should feel like a sprawling animated saga. This is an illustration of why following up a successful anime season with a movie isn’t the best strategy if it weakens the series’ general narrative possibilities.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding several seasons of animated series with an epic movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue entirely by acting as a backstory to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a bit recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the film from proving to be a great experience, a excellent point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.