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Two youngsters experience a private, gentle moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air swimming pool late at night. While they drift as one, hanging under the night sky in the quietness of the evening, the scene portrays the ephemeral, heady thrill of teenage love, utterly caught up in the moment, consequences overlooked.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and all the background details and character histories I had gleaned from the series’ initial episodes proved to be mostly unnecessary. Despite being a canonical installment within the series, Reze Arc provides a more accessible starting place for newcomers — regardless of they missed its single episode. The approach brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits some of the urgency of the film’s story.

Created by the original creator, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where demons embody specific dangers (including ideas like getting older and obscurity to terrifying entities like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s betrayed and murdered by the yakuza, he makes a pact with his faithful companion, Pochita, and comes back from the deceased as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the power to completely destroy Devils and the terrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a violent conflict between demons and hunters, Denji meets a new character — a charming coffee server hiding a deadly mystery — igniting a heartbreaking clash between the pair where affection and survival intersect. This film continues immediately following the first season, exploring the main character’s relationship with his love interest as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, Makima, compelling him to decide among desire, faithfulness, and survival.

An Independent Romantic Tale Amidst a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry story, with our imperfect protagonist Denji falling for Reze right away upon meeting. He’s a isolated boy looking for affection, which renders him vulnerable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is very self-contained. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara recognizes this and ensures the love story is at the center, instead of bogging it down with filler recaps for the new viewers, particularly since such details really matters to the overall plot.

Regardless of Denji’s imperfections, it’s hard not to feel for him. He is still a adolescent, stumbling his way through a reality that’s distorted his understanding of right and wrong. His intense longing for affection makes him come off like a lovesick dog, although he’s prone to barking, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. Reze is a perfect pairing for Denji, an compelling seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our protagonist. Viewers hope to see the main character earn the affection of his love interest, despite she is clearly hiding something from him. Thus when her real identity is unveiled, you still cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow make it work, although internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the cards. Therefore, the tension fail to seem as high as they ought to be since their relationship is doomed. It doesn’t help that the film acts as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving minimal space for a romance like this among the darker developments that followers know are coming soon.

Breathtaking Visuals and Technical Craftsmanship

This movie’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, providing impressive eye candy even before the excitement begins. From vehicles to tiny desk fans, digital assets enhance realism and texture to each scene, allowing the 2D characters stand out beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often showcases its digital elements and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, most noticeably during its explosive climax, where such elements, while not unattractive, become easier to spot. These fluid, ever-shifting backgrounds render the movie’s fights both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to understand. Still, the method excels most when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Final Impressions and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid point of entry, likely resulting in first-time audiences satisfied, but it additionally carries a drawback. Presenting a standalone story limits the stakes of what should feel like a expansive anime epic. It’s an illustration of why following up a popular anime season with a film is not the optimal strategy if it undermines the series’ general storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by tying up multiple installments of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by acting as a backstory to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, maybe a bit foolishly. However that doesn’t stop the movie from being a enjoyable time, a terrific introduction, and a memorable romantic tale.