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A pair of teenagers share a private, gentle instant at the local high school’s open-air pool late at night. While they drift together, hanging under the stars in the stillness of the night, the sequence portrays the fleeting, exhilarating thrill of adolescent love, completely engrossed in the present, ramifications overlooked.

About half an hour into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, it became clear such moments are the core of the film. The love story took center stage, and every bit of contextual information and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes turned out to be mostly unnecessary. Despite being a canonical entry within the franchise, Reze Arc provides a more accessible entry point for newcomers — regardless of they haven’t seen its single episode. This method has its benefits, but it simultaneously limits a portion of the tension of the film’s narrative.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden Devil Hunter in a universe where Devils embody particular dangers (ranging from ideas like getting older and obscurity to specific horrors like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and murdered by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his loyal devil-dog, his pet, and returns from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to permanently erase fiends and the horrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, the hero encounters a new character — a alluring coffee server hiding a deadly mystery — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where affection and existence intersect. This film picks up immediately following the first season, exploring the main character’s connection with Reze as he grapples with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his controlling boss, Makima, forcing him to decide among passion, loyalty, and survival.

A Self-Contained Love Story Within a Broader World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our fallible protagonist the hero becoming enamored with Reze right away upon introduction. He is a lonely young man looking for affection, which renders him unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its extensive cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and ensures the romantic arc is at the center, rather than weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, particularly since none of that is crucial to the overall storyline.

Despite the protagonist’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He is after all a teenager, stumbling his way through a world that’s warped his understanding of right and wrong. His intense longing for love makes him come off like a lovesick dog, although he’s likely to barking, biting, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a perfect pairing for Denji, an compelling femme fatale who targets her prey in our protagonist. Viewers hope to see Denji earn the affection of his love interest, despite Reze is clearly hiding a secret from him. So when her true nature is revealed, audiences can’t help but hope they’ll in some way make it work, even though deep down, it is known a happy ending is never really in the cards. Therefore, the stakes fail to seem as intense as they should be since their relationship is doomed. This is compounded by that the film serves as a immediate follow-up to Season 1, leaving little room for a love story like this among the more grim events that fans are aware are coming soon.

Breathtaking Animation and Artistic Execution

This movie’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning visual appeal even before the excitement begins. Including vehicles to tiny office appliances, digital assets add depth and texture to every shot, allowing the animated figures pop beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often highlights its 3D assets and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed climax, where such elements, while not unattractive, are more apparent to identify. These fluid, dynamic environments render the film’s battles both spectacular to watch and remarkably simple to understand. Nonetheless, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, enhancing the vibrancy and motion of the hand-drawn art.

Final Thoughts and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, likely resulting in first-time audiences satisfied, but it additionally carries a downside. Presenting a standalone narrative restricts the stakes of what should feel like a expansive anime epic. This is an illustration of why continuing a successful anime season with a movie is not the best strategy if it weakens the series’ overall narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding multiple installments of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue entirely by acting as a prequel to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly foolishly. However this does not prevent the film from being a enjoyable time, a terrific point of entry, and a unforgettable romantic tale.