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Two teenagers experience a private, gentle moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s outdoor pool after hours. As they float together, suspended under the night sky in the quietness of the night, the scene portrays the ephemeral, exhilarating excitement of teenage romance, utterly caught up in the moment, consequences forgotten.

Approximately 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the core of the film. The love story took center stage, and all the background details and backstories I had gleaned from the anime’s first season proved to be largely irrelevant. Despite being a canonical entry within the franchise, Reze Arc offers a easier starting place for first-time viewers — regardless of they missed its single episode. This method has its benefits, but it also hinders a portion of the tension of the film’s narrative.

Created by the original creator, Chainsaw Man follows the protagonist, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where Devils represent particular evils (ranging from concepts like getting older and Darkness to terrifying entities like insects or World War II). After being deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, he forms a contract with his faithful companion, Pochita, and comes back from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to permanently erase fiends and the terrors they signify from reality.

Plunged into a violent struggle between devils and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a charming barista hiding a lethal mystery — sparking a heartbreaking confrontation between the two where love and existence intersect. The movie picks up right after season 1, exploring the main character’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his controlling superior, his employer, compelling him to choose between desire, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

An Independent Romantic Tale Amidst a Larger Universe

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our fallible main character Denji becoming enamored with Reze right away upon introduction. He is a isolated boy seeking affection, which makes his heart vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is very self-contained. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and guarantees the love story is at the center, rather than bogging it down with filler recaps for the new viewers, particularly since none of that really matters to the overall storyline.

Despite Denji’s flaws, it’s hard not to feel for him. He’s still a teenager, fumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of right and wrong. His desperate longing for affection portrays him like a lovesick puppy, even if he’s likely to barking, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal match for Denji, an compelling seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our protagonist. Viewers hope to see Denji win the ire of his affection, despite she is obviously concealing something from him. Thus when her real identity is revealed, audiences cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow succeed, even though internally, you know a positive outcome is not truly in the cards. Therefore, the tension fail to seem as intense as they should be since their relationship is doomed. It doesn’t help that the film acts as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving minimal space for a love story like this among the darker developments that followers know are coming soon.

Stunning Animation and Artistic Craftsmanship

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, providing stunning visual appeal even before the excitement begins. From cars to small office appliances, digital assets add depth and detail to every scene, allowing the 2D characters stand out strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently showcases its 3D assets and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, most noticeably during its explosive finale, where such elements, while not unattractive, are more apparent to identify. Such smooth, dynamic environments make the film’s battles both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Still, the technique excels most when it’s unnoticeable, improving the vibrancy and motion of the 2D animation.

Final Thoughts and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc functions as a good starting place, likely resulting in first-time audiences pleased, but it also has a drawback. Telling a self-contained story limits the tension of what ought to seem like a sprawling animated saga. This is an illustration of why following up a successful anime season with a movie isn’t the best approach if it undermines the series’ general storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding multiple installments of animated series with an grand movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue completely by acting as a backstory to its well-known show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, maybe a slightly recklessly. But this does not prevent the film from proving to be a great experience, a excellent point of entry, and a memorable love story.