🔗 Share this article

Two teenagers share a intimate, tender moment at the local high school’s open-air swimming pool after hours. While they drift as one, suspended under the night sky in the quietness of the evening, the scene captures the fleeting, heady thrill of teenage romance, completely caught up in the moment, ramifications overlooked.

Approximately 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear such moments are the core of the movie. The romantic tale became the focus, and all the background details and character histories I had gleaned from the anime’s first season proved to be mostly unnecessary. Although it is a official entry within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a more accessible entry point for newcomers — even if they haven’t seen its prior content. The approach brings advantages, but it also hinders a portion of the urgency of the movie’s story.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a universe where demons represent particular dangers (including concepts like getting older and obscurity to terrifying entities like cockroaches or World War II). When he’s deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his faithful companion, his pet, and returns from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they represent from existence.

Plunged into a violent conflict between demons and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a charming barista hiding a deadly secret — igniting a tragic clash between the pair where affection and existence collide. The movie picks up right after season 1, exploring the main character’s relationship with his love interest as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his controlling superior, Makima, forcing him to decide among desire, loyalty, and self-preservation.

A Self-Contained Romantic Tale Amidst a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our imperfect main character the hero becoming enamored with Reze right away upon introduction. He is a lonely young man seeking 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 large cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly independent. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the forefront, rather than bogging it down with filler recaps for the new viewers, particularly since such details really matters to the overall storyline.

Despite Denji’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He’s after all a adolescent, stumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of right and wrong. His intense craving for love portrays him like a lovesick puppy, although he’s prone to barking, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal pairing for Denji, an compelling seductive antagonist who targets her mark in our protagonist. You want to see Denji earn the affection of his love interest, even if she is obviously concealing a secret from him. Thus when her real identity is unveiled, audiences cannot avoid hope they’ll somehow make it work, even though internally, it is known a positive outcome is never really in the cards. As such, the stakes don’t feel as intense as they ought to be since their romance is fated. It doesn’t help that the movie serves as a immediate follow-up to the first season, allowing little room for a romance like this among the darker events that followers know are approaching.

Stunning Visuals and Technical Execution

The film’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning eye candy even before the action begins. From vehicles to tiny office appliances, 3D models enhance realism and detail to every shot, making the 2D characters pop beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often highlights its digital elements and shifting settings, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed finale, where such elements, though not unappealing, become easier to spot. Such fluid, dynamic environments make the movie’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly easy to follow. Still, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, 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 starting place, probably resulting in new fans pleased, but it additionally carries a drawback. Presenting a standalone story limits the stakes of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. It’s an example of why continuing a popular anime season with a film is not the best approach if it undermines the series’ general storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding several seasons of anime television with an epic movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by serving as a backstory to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, maybe a slightly recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the film from proving to be a great experience, a excellent point of entry, and a memorable romantic tale.