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Two teenagers experience a private, tender moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air pool after hours. As they float together, suspended under the night sky in the stillness of the night, the scene portrays the ephemeral, exhilarating excitement of adolescent love, completely caught up in the present, ramifications overlooked.

About half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear such moments are the core of the film. The romantic tale took center stage, and every bit of background details and backstories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes proved to be largely unnecessary. Despite being a canonical entry within the series, Reze Arc offers a easier starting place for newcomers — regardless of they missed its prior content. This method brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits a portion of the urgency of the film’s narrative.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a indebted fiend fighter in a universe where demons embody specific evils (including concepts like Aging and Darkness to terrifying entities like cockroaches or World War II). After being deceived and killed by the yakuza, Denji forms a contract with his faithful companion, his pet, and returns from the deceased as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the ability to completely destroy Devils and the horrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, the hero meets a new character — a alluring barista concealing a deadly secret — igniting a tragic clash between the two where love and survival intersect. This film continues immediately following the first season, delving into Denji’s relationship with Reze as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his devotion to his manipulative superior, his employer, compelling him to decide among desire, faithfulness, and survival.

A Self-Contained Romantic Tale Within a Larger World

Reze Arc is inherently a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our fallible protagonist the hero becoming enamored with Reze right away upon meeting. He is a lonely boy looking for love, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. Consequently, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is very self-contained. Director the director recognizes this and guarantees the love story is at the forefront, rather than bogging it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, especially when such details is crucial to the overall plot.

Despite Denji’s flaws, it’s difficult not to sympathize with him. He’s still a adolescent, fumbling his way through a reality that’s distorted his understanding of morality. His intense longing for affection portrays him like a lovesick puppy, although he’s likely to barking, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal match for Denji, an effective femme fatale who targets her mark in our hero. You want to see Denji win the ire of his affection, even if she is obviously hiding something from him. So when her real identity is unveiled, you still can’t help but hope they’ll somehow make it work, although deep down, it is known 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 movie acts as a immediate follow-up to the first season, leaving minimal space for a love story like this amid the darker developments that followers know are coming soon.

Breathtaking Visuals and Artistic Execution

This movie’s visuals effortlessly combine traditional animation with computer-generated settings, providing impressive eye candy even before the action begins. From cars to small desk fans, digital assets add depth and detail to each scene, allowing the animated figures pop strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which often showcases its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, particularly evident during its explosive climax, where such elements, while not unattractive, are more apparent to spot. Such smooth, ever-shifting environments render the film’s fights both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to follow. Still, the technique excels most when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Final Thoughts and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc functions as a solid starting place, likely leaving first-time audiences pleased, but it also has a downside. Telling a standalone narrative restricts the stakes of what should feel like a expansive anime epic. This is an example of why following up a successful anime season with a movie is not the best strategy if it undermines the series’ general narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding multiple seasons of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue entirely by acting as a backstory to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, perhaps a slightly foolishly. However this does not prevent the movie from proving to be a enjoyable experience, a terrific point of entry, and a memorable love story.