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Two youngsters share a private, tender moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air pool after hours. As they float as one, suspended under the night sky in the quietness of the night, the sequence captures the fleeting, heady excitement of adolescent love, completely engrossed in the moment, consequences forgotten.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear these scenes are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale became the focus, and every bit of background details and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes proved to be mostly irrelevant. Despite being a canonical installment within the series, Reze Arc offers a more accessible starting place for newcomers — even if they haven’t seen its single episode. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders some of the tension of the movie’s narrative.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a universe where Devils embody specific dangers (including ideas like Aging and obscurity to specific horrors like cockroaches or historical conflicts). After being betrayed and murdered by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his loyal companion, Pochita, and comes back from the dead as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the ability to completely destroy Devils and the terrors they represent from existence.

Thrust into a brutal conflict between devils and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a alluring barista concealing a deadly secret — igniting a tragic clash between the pair where love and survival intersect. The movie picks up immediately following the first season, exploring the main character’s relationship with Reze as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, his employer, compelling him to choose between desire, faithfulness, and survival.

An Independent Love Story Within a Larger World

Reze Arc is inherently a romance-to-rivalry plot, with our imperfect protagonist Denji falling for his counterpart right away upon meeting. He is a lonely boy seeking love, which makes his heart vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is very independent. Director the director understands this and ensures the romantic arc is at the forefront, instead of bogging it down with filler recaps for the new viewers, especially when none of that is crucial to the complete plot.

Despite the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s difficult not to feel for him. He’s still a teenager, stumbling his way through a world that’s warped his sense of morality. His intense craving for affection portrays him like a lovesick dog, although he’s prone to growling, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal pairing for him, an effective seductive antagonist who targets her mark in our hero. You want to see the main character win the ire of his love interest, despite Reze is clearly hiding something from him. So when her true nature is revealed, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way make it work, even though internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the cards. As such, the tension don’t feel as high as they should be since their relationship is doomed. This is compounded by that the movie serves as a immediate follow-up to Season 1, leaving little room for a romance like this amid the more grim developments that fans are aware are approaching.

Stunning Visuals and Artistic Execution

This movie’s visuals seamlessly blend traditional animation with 3D environments, delivering impressive eye candy even before the excitement kicks in. From cars to tiny office appliances, 3D models enhance realism and texture to every scene, making the animated figures pop beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often highlights its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, particularly evident during its explosive finale, where those models, though not unappealing, become easier to spot. Such fluid, dynamic environments render the film’s battles both visually bombastic and surprisingly simple to follow. Nonetheless, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, enhancing the dynamic range and motion of the 2D animation.

Concluding Thoughts and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid point of entry, likely leaving first-time audiences satisfied, but it additionally carries a drawback. Telling a self-contained narrative restricts the stakes of what ought to seem like a sprawling anime epic. It’s an illustration of why continuing a popular anime season with a movie isn’t the best approach if it weakens the franchise’s general narrative possibilities.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by tying up several installments of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the problem entirely by serving as a prequel to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly foolishly. But that doesn’t stop the movie from being a great time, a terrific point of entry, and a unforgettable romantic tale.