🔗 Share this article

A pair of teenagers share a intimate, tender instant at the local secondary school’s outdoor swimming pool late at night. As they float together, hanging beneath the stars in the stillness of the night, the scene captures the ephemeral, exhilarating excitement of adolescent love, completely engrossed in the present, ramifications forgotten.

About half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear such moments are the core of the movie. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale took center stage, and all the background details and backstories previously known from the series’ initial episodes proved to be mostly irrelevant. Although it is a official entry within the series, Reze Arc offers a more accessible entry point for newcomers — regardless of they missed its prior content. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders some of the tension of the movie’s narrative.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows the protagonist, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where demons represent specific evils (including concepts like Aging and obscurity to terrifying entities like cockroaches or World War II). When he’s betrayed and killed by the criminal syndicate, Denji forms a contract with his loyal companion, Pochita, and comes back from the dead as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the power to completely destroy Devils and the horrors they signify from reality.

Plunged into a violent conflict between devils and hunters, the hero meets Reze — a alluring coffee server hiding a deadly mystery — sparking a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where affection and survival collide. This film continues right after season 1, delving into the main character’s relationship with his love interest as he grapples with his emotions for her and his devotion to his manipulative boss, his employer, compelling him to choose between desire, loyalty, and survival.

A Self-Contained Romantic Tale Amidst a Broader World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our imperfect protagonist the hero becoming enamored with Reze right away upon introduction. He is a lonely boy looking for love, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is very self-contained. Filmmaker the director recognizes this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the center, instead of bogging it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, especially when none of that is crucial to the overall plot.

Despite Denji’s imperfections, it’s difficult not to feel for him. He’s after all a adolescent, fumbling his way through a world that’s warped his understanding of morality. His desperate craving for affection portrays him like a lovesick puppy, even if he’s prone to barking, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. Reze is a perfect pairing for him, an effective seductive antagonist who targets her prey in our hero. Viewers hope to see the main character earn the affection of his love interest, even if she is clearly concealing a secret from him. So when her real identity is unveiled, you still cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow make it work, even though internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the cards. As such, the tension don’t feel as high as they ought to be since their relationship is doomed. This is compounded by that the film serves as a immediate follow-up to Season 1, leaving little room for a romance like this among the darker events that fans know are coming soon.

Breathtaking Visuals and Artistic Execution

This movie’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning visual appeal prior to the action begins. Including cars to small office appliances, digital assets enhance realism and detail to each scene, making the 2D characters stand out beautifully. Unlike Demon Slayer, which often highlights its 3D assets and changing backgrounds, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, most noticeably during its action-packed finale, where such elements, while not unattractive, are more apparent to spot. These smooth, ever-shifting backgrounds make the film’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly easy to follow. Still, the technique shines brightest when it’s invisible, improving the dynamic range and movement of the 2D animation.

Final Impressions and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good starting place, probably resulting in first-time audiences pleased, but it also has a drawback. Presenting a self-contained story limits the stakes of what ought to seem like a sprawling animated saga. This is an illustration of why continuing a successful anime season with a movie isn’t the optimal strategy if it undermines the franchise’s general narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding several installments of animated series with an epic movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue entirely by acting as a prequel to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a slightly foolishly. However that doesn’t stop the film from being a great time, a terrific point of entry, and a memorable love story.