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Two youngsters experience a private, tender moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air pool late at night. As they float as one, suspended beneath the stars in the stillness of the night, the sequence captures the fleeting, exhilarating thrill of adolescent romance, utterly engrossed in the moment, consequences overlooked.

About half an hour into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the core of the movie. The romantic tale took center stage, and all the background details and backstories I had gleaned from the anime’s initial episodes proved to be mostly irrelevant. Although it is a canonical installment within the series, Reze Arc offers a more accessible starting place for newcomers — even if they missed its prior content. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders some of the tension of the film’s story.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where Devils embody specific dangers (ranging from concepts like Aging and obscurity to terrifying entities like insects or World War II). After being betrayed and murdered by the yakuza, Denji forms a contract with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and comes back from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they signify from reality.

Plunged into a brutal struggle between devils and hunters, Denji encounters a new character — a alluring coffee server hiding a deadly secret — sparking a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where love and survival intersect. This film continues right after season 1, exploring Denji’s relationship with his love interest as he grapples with his emotions for her and his devotion to his manipulative boss, his employer, compelling him to decide among passion, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

An Independent Romantic Tale Within a Larger World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our fallible protagonist Denji falling for Reze right away upon introduction. He is a lonely boy seeking love, which makes his heart vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come basis. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is very self-contained. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara recognizes this and ensures the romantic arc is at the forefront, instead of weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, especially when such details is crucial to the complete storyline.

Despite Denji’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He is after all a teenager, fumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of morality. His desperate craving for love portrays him like a lovesick dog, even if he’s likely to barking, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal pairing for Denji, an effective seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our protagonist. You want to see Denji earn the affection of his love interest, even if she is obviously concealing something from him. Thus when her true nature is revealed, you still can’t help but wish they’ll in some way succeed, even though deep down, it is known a positive outcome is never really in the cards. Therefore, the tension fail to seem as high as they should be since their relationship is doomed. It doesn’t help that the movie acts as a direct sequel to the first season, allowing minimal space for a romance like this amid the darker developments that fans know are approaching.

Stunning Animation and Technical Execution

This movie’s graphics seamlessly blend 2D animation with computer-generated settings, providing stunning visual appeal even before the action kicks in. Including vehicles to small office appliances, 3D models enhance realism and detail to each scene, making the 2D characters pop beautifully. Unlike Demon Slayer, which often highlights its 3D assets and changing backgrounds, Reze Arc uses them less frequently, most noticeably during its action-packed climax, where such elements, while not unattractive, are more apparent to identify. These smooth, dynamic environments render the film’s fights both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to follow. Still, the technique excels most when it’s unnoticeable, improving the dynamic range and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Final Thoughts and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc functions as a solid starting place, probably leaving new fans satisfied, but it also has a downside. Presenting a self-contained narrative restricts the stakes of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. This is an example of why following up a successful television series with a movie is not the optimal approach if it undermines the series’ overall narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding multiple installments of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the problem entirely by acting as a backstory to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc advances boldly, maybe a bit recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the movie from proving to be a great experience, a excellent point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.