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Two teenagers share a intimate, tender instant at the local high school’s outdoor swimming pool after hours. While they drift together, suspended beneath the stars in the quietness of the evening, the scene portrays the fleeting, exhilarating thrill of teenage love, completely caught up in the moment, consequences forgotten.

Approximately 30 minutes into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the heart of the movie. The love story took center stage, and every bit of background details and backstories I had gleaned from the series’ initial episodes turned out to be mostly unnecessary. Despite being a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc provides a easier starting place for first-time viewers — regardless of they haven’t seen its prior content. The approach brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits some of the tension of the movie’s story.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a indebted fiend fighter in a universe where demons embody specific dangers (ranging from ideas like Aging and Darkness to specific horrors like insects or World War II). After being betrayed and killed by the yakuza, Denji makes a pact with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and comes back from the dead as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the ability to completely destroy Devils and the terrors they signify from existence.

Thrust into a violent struggle between devils and hunters, Denji meets a new character — a charming coffee server concealing a deadly mystery — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the two where affection and survival intersect. The movie continues immediately following season 1, exploring the main character’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his manipulative boss, Makima, forcing him to decide among passion, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

An Independent Romantic Tale Amidst a Broader Universe

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies plot, with our fallible protagonist Denji becoming enamored with Reze right away upon meeting. He’s a isolated young man looking for affection, which renders him unreliable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and ensures the love story is at the forefront, instead of weighing it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, particularly since none of that really matters to the overall storyline.

Regardless of the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s difficult not to feel for him. He is still a teenager, stumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his understanding of morality. His desperate craving for love makes him come off like a lovesick puppy, although he’s likely to barking, biting, and causing chaos along the way. Reze is a ideal pairing for Denji, an effective femme fatale who finds her mark in our protagonist. You want to see the main character earn the affection of his love interest, even if Reze is clearly hiding a secret from him. So when her real identity is unveiled, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way succeed, although internally, it is known a positive outcome is not truly in the plan. Therefore, the stakes don’t feel as high as they ought to be since their romance is fated. This is compounded by that the film acts as a immediate follow-up to Season 1, leaving little room for a romance like this amid the more grim events that followers are aware are approaching.

Breathtaking Animation and Artistic Execution

This movie’s visuals seamlessly blend traditional animation with computer-generated settings, delivering impressive visual appeal even before the action kicks in. Including vehicles to small office appliances, digital assets add depth and detail to every scene, allowing the animated figures stand out strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently highlights its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc uses them less frequently, most noticeably during its action-packed finale, where such elements, while not unattractive, become easier to spot. These fluid, ever-shifting environments make the film’s fights both spectacular to watch and remarkably simple to understand. Still, the method excels most when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Concluding Thoughts and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, likely resulting in first-time audiences satisfied, but it also has a drawback. Presenting a standalone story limits the tension of what should feel like a sprawling anime epic. It’s an illustration of why continuing a successful anime season with a film is not the optimal strategy if it weakens the series’ overall storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by tying up multiple seasons of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue entirely by serving as a prequel to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, maybe a slightly foolishly. However that doesn’t stop the film from being a great time, a excellent introduction, and a memorable romantic tale.