🔗 Share this article

A pair of youngsters experience a private, tender moment at the local secondary school’s open-air swimming pool after hours. As they float together, hanging under the stars in the quietness of the evening, the sequence captures the ephemeral, exhilarating thrill of teenage love, completely caught up in the present, consequences overlooked.

About half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear these scenes are the heart of the movie. The romantic tale became the focus, and all the contextual information and character histories I had gleaned from the anime’s initial episodes proved to be largely unnecessary. Despite being a official installment within the series, Reze Arc offers a easier starting place for newcomers — regardless of they missed its single episode. This method has its benefits, but it simultaneously limits a portion of the urgency of the film’s narrative.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden Devil Hunter in a universe where demons represent particular dangers (including concepts like Aging and obscurity to terrifying entities like cockroaches or historical conflicts). After being betrayed and murdered 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 permanently erase Devils and the terrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between demons and hunters, Denji meets Reze — a charming barista concealing a deadly secret — igniting a heartbreaking clash between the two where love and existence intersect. This film continues right after the first season, exploring Denji’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his feelings 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 Broader World

Reze Arc is inherently a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our fallible protagonist Denji falling for Reze almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a lonely boy looking for affection, which renders him unreliable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its extensive ensemble, Reze Arc is very independent. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and ensures the romantic arc is at the center, rather than weighing it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, especially when none of that really matters to the overall plot.

Regardless of the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He is still a teenager, fumbling his way through a world that’s warped his sense of morality. His desperate craving for affection makes him come off like a infatuated dog, even if he’s prone to barking, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a perfect match for him, an compelling femme fatale who finds her mark in our hero. You want to see the main character win the ire of his love interest, even if Reze is clearly hiding something from him. So when her real identity is revealed, audiences cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow make it work, even though internally, it is known a positive outcome is not truly in the plan. As such, the stakes don’t feel as intense as they ought to be since their romance is doomed. It doesn’t help that the movie acts as a direct sequel to the first season, leaving little room for a love story like this amid the darker events that followers are aware are approaching.

Stunning Visuals and Artistic Execution

The film’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, delivering impressive visual appeal even before the excitement begins. From vehicles to small desk fans, 3D models add depth and texture to every shot, making the animated figures stand out beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently showcases its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc uses them less frequently, particularly evident during its explosive finale, where those models, though not unappealing, become easier to identify. Such fluid, ever-shifting environments make the movie’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to understand. Nonetheless, the method shines brightest when it’s unnoticeable, improving the dynamic range and movement of the 2D animation.

Final Thoughts and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, likely resulting in new fans pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Telling a self-contained story limits the stakes of what ought to seem like a expansive animated saga. It’s an illustration of why continuing a popular television series with a movie is not the best approach if it undermines the franchise’s general storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by tying up several seasons of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the problem completely by serving as a backstory to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a bit foolishly. But that doesn’t stop the movie from being a great time, a excellent introduction, and a unforgettable romantic tale.