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A pair of youngsters experience a intimate, gentle moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air pool late at night. As they float together, hanging beneath the stars in the stillness of the evening, the scene captures the ephemeral, exhilarating thrill of adolescent romance, completely caught up in the present, consequences overlooked.

About half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the core of the movie. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and every bit of background details and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes turned out to be mostly irrelevant. Despite being a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc provides a more accessible starting place for newcomers — even if they haven’t seen its single episode. The approach brings advantages, but it also hinders some of the urgency of the film’s narrative.

Developed by the original creator, Chainsaw Man chronicles Denji, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where Devils represent specific evils (including ideas like getting older and obscurity to specific horrors like insects or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and murdered by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and returns from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the ability to permanently erase fiends and the horrors they represent from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between demons and hunters, Denji meets Reze — a alluring barista hiding a lethal secret — sparking a tragic confrontation between the two where affection and existence collide. This film continues right after season 1, delving into Denji’s connection with Reze as he grapples with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his controlling superior, Makima, compelling him to decide among passion, loyalty, and survival.

A Self-Contained Love Story Within a Broader World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our imperfect main character the hero falling for his counterpart right away upon introduction. He’s a lonely boy seeking love, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Director the director recognizes this and ensures the love story is at the forefront, instead of bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, particularly since none of that really matters to the complete plot.

Despite Denji’s imperfections, it’s hard not to feel for him. He is still a adolescent, stumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his sense of morality. His desperate longing for affection portrays him like a lovesick dog, although he’s likely to growling, snapping, and making a mess along the way. Reze is a ideal pairing for him, an effective femme fatale who finds her mark in our hero. Viewers hope to see Denji earn the affection of his love interest, even if Reze is clearly concealing something from him. Thus when her real identity is revealed, audiences can’t help but wish they’ll in some way make it work, although deep down, 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 doomed. It doesn’t help that the movie serves as a direct sequel to the first season, allowing minimal space for a romance like this amid the more grim events that followers know are approaching.

Breathtaking Animation and Technical Execution

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with 3D environments, delivering impressive eye candy prior to the action kicks in. From vehicles to small desk fans, digital assets add depth and texture to each scene, allowing the 2D characters pop strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which frequently showcases its digital elements and changing backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, most noticeably during its action-packed climax, where those models, while not unattractive, are more apparent to spot. These fluid, ever-shifting environments make the movie’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Still, the technique shines brightest when it’s invisible, improving the dynamic range and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Concluding Impressions and Wider Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, likely leaving first-time audiences satisfied, but it also has a downside. Presenting a standalone story limits the stakes of what should feel like a sprawling animated saga. This is an example of why continuing a successful television series with a movie is not the optimal strategy if it weakens the franchise’s general narrative possibilities.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding multiple installments of anime television with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by acting as a backstory to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, perhaps a slightly foolishly. However that doesn’t stop the movie from being a enjoyable time, a excellent point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.