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Two youngsters share a private, tender moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air pool after hours. While they drift as one, suspended beneath the stars in the stillness of the night, the sequence captures the ephemeral, heady thrill of adolescent romance, utterly engrossed in the moment, consequences forgotten.

About 30 minutes into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the heart of the film. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and every bit of contextual information and backstories previously known from the anime’s first season turned out to be largely unnecessary. Despite being a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a easier starting place for newcomers — regardless of they missed its single episode. This method brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits some of the tension of the film’s narrative.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where Devils represent specific evils (including concepts like getting older and obscurity to specific horrors like insects or World War II). When he’s deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, Denji makes a pact with his faithful devil-dog, his pet, and returns from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they represent from existence.

Thrust into a violent struggle between demons and hunters, Denji meets a new character — a alluring barista concealing a lethal secret — sparking a tragic clash between the two where love and survival intersect. The movie picks up immediately following the first season, exploring Denji’s connection with his love interest as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, his employer, forcing him to decide among passion, loyalty, and self-preservation.

A Self-Contained Love Story Amidst a Broader World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies plot, with our fallible main character Denji falling for his counterpart almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a isolated young man seeking love, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. As a result, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is highly independent. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and guarantees the love story is at the forefront, rather than weighing it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, especially when none of that is crucial to the overall plot.

Regardless of Denji’s imperfections, it’s difficult not to feel for him. He’s after all a adolescent, fumbling his way through a world that’s warped his sense of right and wrong. His desperate longing for affection portrays him like a infatuated dog, even if he’s prone to growling, snapping, and making a mess along the way. Reze is a ideal pairing for him, an effective femme fatale who targets her prey in our protagonist. You want to see the main character win the ire of his love interest, even if Reze is clearly hiding a secret from him. So when her true nature is unveiled, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way succeed, although internally, you know a positive outcome is not truly in the cards. As such, the tension fail to seem as intense as they should be since their relationship is fated. This is compounded by that the film acts as a immediate follow-up to Season 1, leaving little room for a love story like this amid the darker developments that fans are aware are coming soon.

Breathtaking Animation and Artistic Craftsmanship

This movie’s visuals seamlessly blend 2D animation with 3D environments, providing stunning visual appeal even before the excitement begins. Including cars to small office appliances, 3D models add depth and texture to each shot, allowing the animated figures pop strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently showcases its 3D assets and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, most noticeably during its explosive finale, where such elements, though not unappealing, become easier to identify. Such smooth, ever-shifting environments make the film’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to understand. Nonetheless, the technique shines brightest when it’s invisible, improving the dynamic range and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Final Impressions and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid point of entry, likely resulting in first-time audiences pleased, but it additionally carries a drawback. Presenting a standalone narrative limits the stakes of what should feel like a expansive anime epic. It’s an illustration of why following up a successful television series with a movie isn’t the best approach if it undermines the franchise’s general storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding several seasons of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by serving as a prequel to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the film from proving to be a enjoyable time, a terrific point of entry, and a memorable love story.