🔗 Share this article

A pair of teenagers experience a intimate, gentle moment at the local high school’s outdoor pool late at night. As they float together, suspended under the night sky in the stillness of the night, the scene portrays the fleeting, heady thrill of adolescent romance, completely caught up in the moment, ramifications forgotten.

Approximately half an hour into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, it became clear such moments are the core of the movie. Denji and Reze’s love story became the focus, and all the background details and backstories previously known from the series’ initial episodes proved to be largely irrelevant. Although it is a canonical installment within the series, Reze Arc provides a more accessible entry point for newcomers — regardless of they haven’t seen its single episode. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders a portion of the urgency of the movie’s narrative.

Created by the original creator, Chainsaw Man follows the protagonist, a indebted Devil Hunter in a universe where demons represent specific evils (ranging from ideas like getting older and obscurity to specific horrors like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, Denji makes a pact with his faithful companion, Pochita, and comes back from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy Devils and the terrors they represent from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between demons and hunters, Denji meets Reze — a charming coffee server hiding a lethal mystery — sparking a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where love and existence collide. The movie continues immediately following the first season, delving into Denji’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his emotions for her and his devotion to his manipulative superior, his employer, forcing him to choose between passion, faithfulness, and survival.

An Independent Romantic Tale Within a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a lovers-to-enemies plot, with our imperfect main character the hero becoming enamored with Reze almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a isolated boy looking for affection, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its extensive cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly independent. Filmmaker Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the forefront, rather than weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, particularly since none of that really matters to the complete plot.

Regardless of the protagonist’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He’s still a teenager, stumbling his way through a reality that’s distorted his sense of morality. His intense craving for affection portrays him like a lovesick puppy, even if he’s prone to growling, snapping, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a ideal pairing for Denji, an compelling femme fatale who finds her prey in our hero. You want to see the main character earn the affection of his love interest, despite Reze is obviously hiding something from him. Thus when her true nature is revealed, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way make it work, even though deep down, you know a positive outcome is never really in the plan. As such, the tension fail to seem as high as they ought to be since their relationship is fated. This is compounded by that the film serves as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving little room for a romance like this among the darker developments that followers know are approaching.

Stunning Animation and Artistic Craftsmanship

This movie’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, delivering impressive visual appeal even before the excitement begins. Including vehicles to tiny office appliances, 3D models add depth and texture to every shot, making the animated figures stand out strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which frequently showcases its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, most noticeably during its action-packed climax, where such elements, though not unappealing, are more apparent to identify. These fluid, dynamic environments make the movie’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to follow. Still, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, improving the vibrancy and motion of the hand-drawn art.

Concluding Impressions and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid starting place, likely resulting in new fans pleased, but it also has a downside. Presenting a standalone story limits the stakes of what should feel like a sprawling anime epic. It’s an illustration of why following up a popular television series with a film is not the best strategy if it weakens the franchise’s overall storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by tying up multiple seasons of animated series with an grand movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the problem completely by serving as a backstory to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a bit recklessly. However this does not prevent the movie from being a enjoyable experience, a terrific point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.