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Two teenagers experience a private, tender instant at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air pool after hours. While they drift together, suspended under the stars in the stillness of the evening, the sequence captures the ephemeral, heady thrill of adolescent love, completely caught up in the moment, consequences overlooked.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the core of the movie. Denji and Reze’s love story became the focus, and all the background details and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes turned out to be largely unnecessary. Despite being a official entry within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a easier entry point for newcomers — regardless of they haven’t seen its single episode. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders some of the tension of the film’s story.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where Devils embody specific dangers (ranging from ideas like Aging and Darkness to terrifying entities like cockroaches or World War II). When he’s betrayed and killed by the yakuza, he forms a contract with his faithful companion, Pochita, and returns from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to completely destroy Devils and the terrors they represent from existence.

Thrust into a brutal struggle between demons and hunters, Denji encounters a new character — a charming coffee server hiding a deadly mystery — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the two where love and survival intersect. The movie picks up immediately following season 1, exploring the main character’s connection with Reze as he grapples with his feelings for her and his devotion to his manipulative boss, his employer, compelling him to decide among desire, loyalty, and survival.

A Self-Contained Romantic Tale Amidst a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies plot, with our imperfect protagonist the hero becoming enamored with his counterpart right away upon introduction. He is a lonely boy looking for love, which makes his heart vulnerable and up for grabs 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 very independent. Filmmaker Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and guarantees the love story is at the forefront, instead of bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, particularly since such details really matters to the overall plot.

Despite the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He is after all a teenager, stumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of morality. His intense longing for love makes him come off like a infatuated puppy, although he’s prone to growling, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal pairing for him, an compelling seductive antagonist who targets her mark in our hero. You want to see the main character win the ire of his affection, even if Reze is clearly concealing something from him. So when her true nature is unveiled, audiences can’t help but hope they’ll in some way make it work, even though deep down, you know a happy ending is never really in the cards. As such, the tension fail to seem as high as they should be since their relationship is doomed. It doesn’t help that the film acts as a immediate follow-up to the first season, leaving minimal space for a love story like this amid the more grim developments that fans are aware are approaching.

Breathtaking Visuals and Artistic Execution

This movie’s graphics seamlessly blend 2D animation with computer-generated settings, providing stunning eye candy even before the action kicks in. Including cars to tiny desk fans, digital assets enhance realism and detail to every scene, making the animated figures stand out beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently highlights its digital elements and changing settings, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, most noticeably during its explosive climax, where those models, while not unattractive, become easier to identify. These fluid, ever-shifting environments render the film’s battles both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to understand. Nonetheless, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, improving the dynamic range and movement of the 2D animation.

Final Impressions and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid point of entry, likely resulting in new fans pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Telling a self-contained story limits the tension of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. This is an illustration of why following up a popular anime season with a film is not the optimal strategy if it undermines the franchise’s general narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by tying up multiple seasons of animated series with an epic movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by acting as a backstory to its well-known show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, perhaps a slightly recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the movie from proving to be a enjoyable experience, a terrific introduction, and a memorable romantic tale.