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A pair of teenagers share a intimate, gentle instant at the neighborhood high school’s outdoor swimming pool late at night. While they drift together, hanging beneath the stars in the stillness of the evening, the scene captures the fleeting, exhilarating excitement of adolescent love, utterly caught up in the moment, ramifications forgotten.

Approximately half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear such moments are the heart of the film. The love story became the focus, and all the contextual information and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes turned out to be mostly irrelevant. Although it is a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a easier entry point for newcomers — even if they missed its single episode. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders a portion of the tension of the film’s story.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a debt-ridden Devil Hunter in a world where demons represent particular evils (including concepts like Aging and Darkness to specific horrors like insects or historical conflicts). After being betrayed and killed by the yakuza, Denji makes a pact with his loyal companion, his pet, and returns from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to permanently erase Devils and the terrors they represent from existence.

Thrust into a violent struggle between demons and hunters, the hero encounters a new character — a charming barista concealing a deadly mystery — sparking a tragic confrontation between the two where love and existence intersect. The movie continues right after season 1, delving into the main character’s relationship with Reze as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his controlling superior, Makima, compelling him to choose between passion, faithfulness, and survival.

A Self-Contained Love Story Within a Broader World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a lovers-to-enemies story, with our imperfect main character the hero falling for his counterpart right away upon meeting. He is a lonely young man looking for affection, which renders him unreliable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its extensive ensemble, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Director the director understands this and guarantees the love story is at the forefront, rather than weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, particularly since such details is crucial to the overall storyline.

Despite the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s hard not to feel for him. He is still a adolescent, fumbling his way through a reality that’s distorted his sense of morality. His intense longing for affection makes him come off like a lovesick puppy, even if he’s prone to growling, biting, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a perfect match for him, an compelling seductive antagonist who targets her mark in our hero. Viewers hope to see the main character earn the affection of his love interest, despite Reze is clearly concealing a secret from him. Thus when her real identity is revealed, you still can’t help but hope they’ll somehow succeed, although internally, it is known a happy ending is never really in the plan. As such, the tension fail to seem as high as they ought to be since their romance is doomed. This is compounded by that the movie acts as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving minimal space for a romance like this amid the darker events that followers are aware are approaching.

Stunning Visuals and Artistic Execution

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, providing stunning visual appeal even before the excitement kicks in. From cars to small desk fans, 3D models add depth and detail to each scene, making the 2D characters pop strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which frequently highlights its digital elements and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its explosive finale, where those models, while not unattractive, become easier to spot. Such smooth, ever-shifting environments make the film’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to follow. Still, the method shines brightest when it’s invisible, improving the dynamic range and movement of the 2D animation.

Concluding Impressions and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good starting place, likely leaving new fans satisfied, but it also has a downside. Telling a standalone story restricts the tension of what ought to seem like a expansive anime epic. This is an example of why following up a popular television series with a film isn’t the best approach if it undermines the franchise’s general storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding multiple seasons of animated series with an epic film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the problem entirely by serving as a backstory to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly foolishly. But that doesn’t stop the film from being a great time, a terrific introduction, and a memorable romantic tale.