🔗 Share this article

Two youngsters share a private, tender moment at the neighborhood high school’s outdoor pool late at night. As they float as one, hanging under the stars in the quietness of the evening, the scene portrays the ephemeral, heady excitement of teenage romance, utterly caught up in the moment, ramifications overlooked.

Approximately half an hour into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the heart of the film. The love story took center stage, and all the contextual information and backstories previously known from the anime’s first season turned out to be mostly unnecessary. Although it is a canonical entry within the series, Reze Arc offers a easier entry point for first-time viewers — regardless of they haven’t seen its prior content. This method brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits a portion of the urgency of the movie’s story.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a debt-ridden Devil Hunter in a universe where Devils embody particular dangers (ranging from concepts like Aging and obscurity to terrifying entities like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and killed by the yakuza, he makes a pact with his loyal companion, Pochita, and returns from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they signify from reality.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, the hero meets Reze — a charming barista hiding a deadly mystery — igniting a tragic confrontation between the two where love and existence intersect. The movie continues right after season 1, delving into the main character’s connection 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 survival.

A Self-Contained Love Story Within a Broader World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry story, with our fallible main character Denji falling for his counterpart almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a lonely young man looking for love, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate mythology and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is highly independent. Director the director understands this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the center, rather than weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, particularly since none of that is crucial to the complete plot.

Regardless of the protagonist’s flaws, it’s difficult not to feel for him. He is still a adolescent, stumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of right and wrong. His desperate longing for love portrays him like a infatuated puppy, although he’s prone to growling, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a perfect pairing for Denji, an compelling seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our protagonist. You want to see Denji earn the affection of his love interest, even if she is clearly concealing something from him. So when her real identity is revealed, you still can’t help but wish they’ll somehow make it work, even though internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the plan. As such, the stakes fail to seem as high as they ought to be since their relationship is doomed. This is compounded by that the film serves as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving little room for a love story like this amid the more grim events that fans are aware are coming soon.

Breathtaking Visuals and Technical Craftsmanship

The film’s graphics seamlessly blend traditional animation with computer-generated settings, providing impressive eye candy prior to the excitement begins. From cars to tiny desk fans, digital assets add depth and texture to each shot, making the animated figures stand out strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which often showcases its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed finale, where such elements, though not unappealing, are more apparent to spot. Such smooth, dynamic environments render the film’s battles both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Nonetheless, the method shines brightest when it’s unnoticeable, improving the vibrancy and motion of the 2D animation.

Final Impressions and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc functions as a solid starting place, likely resulting in new fans satisfied, but it also has a drawback. Telling a self-contained story restricts the tension of what ought to seem like a expansive animated saga. This is an illustration of why continuing a successful anime season with a film isn’t the best strategy if it undermines the franchise’s overall narrative possibilities.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding several installments of anime television with an grand movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue entirely by serving as a prequel to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, maybe a slightly foolishly. But that doesn’t stop the film from being a great experience, a terrific point of entry, and a memorable romantic tale.