🔗 Share this article

A pair of youngsters experience a private, tender instant at the neighborhood high school’s outdoor swimming pool after hours. As they float as one, suspended under the night sky in the stillness of the night, the scene captures the fleeting, exhilarating excitement of teenage romance, utterly caught up in the present, ramifications forgotten.

Approximately half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s love story became the focus, and every bit of contextual information and character histories previously known from the series’ initial episodes proved to be mostly unnecessary. Although it is a official entry within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a easier entry point for first-time viewers — regardless of they haven’t seen its single episode. This method brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits some of the tension of the film’s narrative.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where Devils represent particular dangers (ranging from concepts like Aging and obscurity to specific horrors like cockroaches or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, Denji makes a pact with his faithful companion, Pochita, and returns from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to permanently erase fiends and the horrors they represent from existence.

Plunged into a violent struggle between devils and hunters, Denji meets a new character — a alluring barista concealing a deadly secret — sparking a tragic clash between the pair where love and survival intersect. This film picks up immediately following season 1, delving into Denji’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, his employer, forcing him to decide among desire, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

An Independent Love Story Within a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our fallible protagonist the hero falling for Reze almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a lonely boy seeking love, which renders him vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come basis. Consequently, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its extensive cast of characters, Reze Arc is very self-contained. Filmmaker the director recognizes this and guarantees the love story is at the center, instead of bogging it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, especially when such details is crucial to the overall plot.

Despite Denji’s flaws, it’s difficult not to sympathize with him. He is after all a teenager, fumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his understanding of right and wrong. His desperate longing for love makes him come off like a lovesick dog, even if he’s prone to barking, biting, and making a mess along the way. Reze is a ideal pairing for him, 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 something from him. So when her true nature is revealed, audiences can’t help but wish they’ll in some way succeed, although internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the plan. As such, the stakes fail to seem as intense as they ought to be since their relationship is fated. This is compounded by that the movie serves as a immediate follow-up to the first season, allowing little room for a romance like this amid the darker events that fans know are approaching.

Breathtaking Animation and Artistic Craftsmanship

This movie’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, delivering impressive eye candy prior to the action kicks in. Including vehicles to small desk fans, 3D models add depth and texture to every shot, allowing the 2D characters pop strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often showcases its 3D assets and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its explosive climax, where those models, though not unappealing, are more apparent to spot. These smooth, ever-shifting environments make the film’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to follow. Nonetheless, the technique excels most when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the dynamic range and movement of the 2D animation.

Final Impressions and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, probably resulting in new fans pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Presenting a standalone narrative limits the stakes of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. This is an example of why following up a successful anime season with a movie is not the optimal strategy if it weakens the franchise’s general narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding several seasons of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by acting as a backstory to its well-known show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a bit foolishly. But this does not prevent the movie from proving to be a enjoyable time, a excellent point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.