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Two teenagers share a private, tender instant at the neighborhood secondary school’s outdoor swimming pool after hours. As they float together, suspended under the stars in the quietness of the evening, the sequence portrays the ephemeral, exhilarating thrill of teenage love, completely engrossed in the present, ramifications forgotten.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the heart of the movie. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and all the background details and backstories previously known from the series’ first season turned out to be mostly irrelevant. Despite being a canonical installment within the series, Reze Arc provides a easier starting place for newcomers — even if they missed its prior content. This method has its benefits, but it simultaneously limits a portion of the urgency of the movie’s narrative.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where demons embody specific evils (including concepts like Aging and Darkness to specific horrors like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and comes back from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they signify from reality.

Thrust into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a charming coffee server concealing a lethal mystery — igniting a tragic clash between the pair where affection and survival intersect. This film continues right after the first season, exploring Denji’s relationship with his love interest as he wrestles with his feelings for her and his devotion to his controlling superior, his employer, compelling him to choose between desire, faithfulness, and survival.

An Independent Love Story Amidst a Larger World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our fallible protagonist the hero falling for Reze almost immediately upon introduction. He’s a isolated boy seeking affection, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is very independent. Filmmaker the director recognizes this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the center, rather than weighing it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, particularly since none of that really matters to the complete storyline.

Regardless of Denji’s flaws, it’s difficult not to sympathize with him. He’s still a adolescent, stumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his sense of right and wrong. His intense craving for affection portrays him like a lovesick dog, although he’s likely to barking, biting, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a ideal match for Denji, an effective seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our protagonist. You want to see the main character win the ire of his affection, even if Reze is obviously hiding something from him. So when her real identity is unveiled, you still cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow succeed, although deep down, you know a happy ending is never really in the cards. As such, the stakes fail to seem as high as they ought to be since their relationship is fated. It doesn’t help that the film acts as a immediate follow-up to the first season, leaving little room for a romance like this among the darker developments that fans are aware are approaching.

Stunning Visuals and Technical Craftsmanship

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning eye candy even before the action kicks in. From cars to tiny office appliances, 3D models enhance realism and texture to each scene, allowing the 2D characters pop strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which often showcases its digital elements and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, particularly evident during its explosive finale, where those models, though not unappealing, are more apparent to identify. These smooth, ever-shifting backgrounds make the movie’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly simple to follow. Nonetheless, the method excels most when it’s invisible, enhancing the dynamic range and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Concluding Impressions and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, probably resulting in new fans pleased, but it also has a downside. Telling a standalone narrative limits the tension of what ought to seem like a sprawling animated saga. This is an example of why continuing a popular television series with a film isn’t the best strategy if it undermines the series’ general narrative possibilities.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding multiple seasons of anime television with an epic movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue entirely by serving as a prequel to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a bit recklessly. However this does not prevent the movie from proving to be a great experience, a terrific point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.