🔗 Share this article

A pair of teenagers share a private, gentle moment at the local secondary school’s outdoor swimming pool late at night. While they drift as one, hanging under the night sky in the stillness of the evening, the sequence captures the fleeting, heady excitement of teenage romance, completely caught up in the present, consequences forgotten.

Approximately 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear these scenes are the heart of the movie. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and all the contextual information and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes turned out to be mostly irrelevant. Despite being a canonical entry within the series, Reze Arc provides a more accessible starting place for first-time viewers — regardless of they haven’t seen its single episode. The approach has its benefits, but it simultaneously limits some of the tension of the film’s narrative.

Developed by the original creator, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where Devils embody specific evils (ranging from concepts like Aging and obscurity to specific horrors like cockroaches or historical conflicts). After being deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his faithful devil-dog, his pet, and comes back from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy fiends and the horrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a violent struggle between devils and hunters, the hero encounters Reze — a charming barista hiding a deadly secret — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the two where love and existence collide. The movie picks up immediately following the first season, delving into Denji’s connection with his love interest as he grapples with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his controlling boss, Makima, compelling him to decide among desire, loyalty, and self-preservation.

An Independent Romantic Tale Within a Larger World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our fallible main character Denji falling for his counterpart almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a isolated young man looking for love, which renders him vulnerable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is highly independent. Director the director understands this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the forefront, instead of bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, particularly since such details is crucial to the overall plot.

Regardless of Denji’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He is after all a teenager, fumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his sense of right and wrong. His desperate longing for affection portrays him like a lovesick dog, although he’s likely to growling, snapping, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a perfect pairing for Denji, an compelling seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our hero. Viewers hope to see the main character win the ire of his affection, despite she is clearly hiding something from him. So when her true nature is revealed, audiences 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 cards. Therefore, the stakes don’t feel as high as they should be since their romance is fated. It doesn’t help that the film acts as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving minimal space for a romance like this amid the more grim developments that followers know are approaching.

Stunning Animation and Technical Craftsmanship

The film’s graphics effortlessly combine traditional animation with 3D environments, delivering stunning eye candy even before the action kicks in. Including vehicles to tiny desk fans, 3D models add depth and texture to each scene, making the 2D characters stand out strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently highlights its digital elements and shifting settings, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, most noticeably during its action-packed finale, where those models, while not unattractive, are more apparent to identify. These smooth, ever-shifting environments make the movie’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly easy to follow. Still, the method shines brightest when it’s invisible, improving the vibrancy and motion of the 2D animation.

Final Impressions and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc functions as a good point of entry, probably resulting in first-time audiences pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Telling a standalone narrative restricts the stakes of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. It’s an example of why continuing a successful anime season with a film is not the optimal approach if it weakens the series’ general storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding multiple seasons of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the problem entirely by serving as a backstory to its well-known show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a slightly recklessly. However this does not prevent the movie from being a great time, a excellent introduction, and a memorable love story.