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Two teenagers experience a private, tender moment at the local secondary school’s outdoor pool after hours. As they float together, hanging beneath the night sky in the stillness of the evening, the sequence portrays the fleeting, exhilarating excitement of teenage romance, completely caught up in the moment, consequences forgotten.

About 30 minutes into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale became the focus, and every bit of background details and backstories previously known from the series’ first season proved to be largely irrelevant. Despite being a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a more accessible starting place for newcomers — even if they haven’t seen its single episode. This method brings advantages, but it also hinders a portion of the urgency of the movie’s story.

Created by the original creator, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where Devils represent specific dangers (ranging from concepts like Aging and obscurity to specific horrors like cockroaches or World War II). When he’s betrayed and killed by the criminal syndicate, Denji makes a pact with his loyal companion, his pet, and comes back from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to permanently erase fiends and the terrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, the hero encounters Reze — a charming barista hiding a lethal secret — sparking a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where love and existence collide. The movie picks up immediately following the first season, exploring Denji’s connection with Reze as he wrestles with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his manipulative boss, Makima, compelling him to choose between desire, loyalty, and self-preservation.

A Self-Contained Love Story Amidst a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry story, with our fallible protagonist the hero becoming enamored with his counterpart almost immediately upon meeting. He’s a isolated boy seeking affection, which renders him vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come basis. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its extensive ensemble, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara recognizes this and guarantees the love story is at the center, rather than bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, particularly since none of that is crucial to the overall plot.

Despite Denji’s imperfections, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He’s still a teenager, fumbling his way through a world that’s warped his sense of right and wrong. His desperate longing for love makes him come off like a lovesick puppy, even if he’s likely to growling, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal match for Denji, an effective seductive antagonist who targets her mark in our protagonist. Viewers hope to see Denji win the ire of his love interest, even if she is obviously hiding a secret from him. So when her real identity is revealed, audiences can’t help but hope they’ll somehow make it work, even though deep down, you know a positive outcome is never really in the plan. As such, the stakes fail to seem as intense as they should be since their relationship is doomed. It doesn’t help that the film serves as a direct sequel to Season 1, allowing minimal space for a love story like this among the more grim developments that fans are aware are coming soon.

Stunning Visuals and Artistic Craftsmanship

The film’s graphics seamlessly blend traditional animation with computer-generated settings, providing impressive visual appeal even before the action kicks in. From vehicles to tiny office appliances, digital assets add depth and texture to each shot, making the 2D characters pop strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which frequently highlights its 3D assets and shifting settings, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, particularly evident during its explosive finale, where such elements, though not unappealing, become easier to identify. Such smooth, dynamic environments render the film’s battles both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to follow. Still, the technique excels most when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the vibrancy and motion of the hand-drawn art.

Final Thoughts and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good starting place, probably leaving first-time audiences pleased, but it additionally carries a drawback. Telling a self-contained story restricts the stakes of what ought to seem like a expansive animated saga. It’s an illustration of why continuing a popular anime season with a movie is not the optimal approach if it undermines the franchise’s overall storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding multiple installments of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the problem completely by acting as a prequel to its well-known show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a bit recklessly. However this does not prevent the movie from being a great time, a excellent point of entry, and a unforgettable romantic tale.