🔗 Share this article

A pair of youngsters share a intimate, gentle moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s outdoor swimming pool after hours. As they float together, hanging beneath the night sky in the stillness of the evening, the scene captures the fleeting, heady thrill of teenage romance, utterly engrossed in the moment, consequences overlooked.

Approximately half an hour into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s love story became the focus, and all the background details and character histories I had gleaned from the anime’s first season turned out to be mostly irrelevant. Despite being a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a easier starting place for first-time viewers — even if they missed its single episode. This method has its benefits, but it simultaneously limits a portion of the tension of the movie’s story.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where Devils embody particular dangers (including ideas like Aging and obscurity to terrifying entities like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and murdered by the yakuza, he makes a pact with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and returns from the dead as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the ability to permanently erase Devils and the terrors they represent from reality.

Thrust into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, Denji encounters a new character — a charming coffee server concealing a lethal mystery — sparking a heartbreaking clash between the pair where love and survival intersect. This film picks up immediately following season 1, delving into the main character’s connection with Reze as he grapples with his emotions for her and his devotion to his controlling boss, his employer, forcing him to decide among passion, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

An Independent Romantic Tale Within a Larger World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry story, with our imperfect protagonist the hero becoming enamored with his counterpart almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a lonely young man looking for love, which makes his heart unreliable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Filmmaker Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and ensures the romantic arc is at the center, rather than bogging it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, particularly since such details really matters to the complete storyline.

Despite Denji’s imperfections, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He is still a teenager, stumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of morality. His intense longing for love makes him come off like a lovesick dog, although he’s likely to growling, snapping, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a perfect match for him, an compelling femme fatale who finds 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. So when her real identity is revealed, you still cannot avoid hope they’ll somehow succeed, even though deep down, you know a positive outcome is never really in the cards. Therefore, the tension don’t feel as intense as they should be since their relationship is fated. This is compounded by that the film serves as a immediate follow-up to the first season, leaving minimal space for a romance like this among the darker events that fans are aware are approaching.

Breathtaking Animation and Technical Execution

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine traditional animation with computer-generated settings, providing impressive eye candy prior to the excitement begins. From vehicles to tiny office appliances, 3D models add depth and detail to each scene, making the 2D characters pop strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which often highlights its digital elements and shifting settings, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, most noticeably during its action-packed climax, where those models, though not unappealing, are more apparent to spot. Such smooth, dynamic backgrounds make the film’s battles both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Still, the method shines brightest when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Final Impressions and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid starting place, likely leaving first-time audiences satisfied, but it also has a downside. Presenting a self-contained narrative restricts the stakes of what should feel like a sprawling animated saga. This is an example of why continuing a popular anime season with a movie isn’t the optimal approach if it undermines the series’ overall narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding several seasons of animated series with an epic film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by serving as a backstory to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a bit recklessly. But this does not prevent the movie from being a enjoyable experience, a excellent point of entry, and a memorable romantic tale.