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Two teenagers experience a private, tender moment at the neighborhood high school’s open-air pool late at night. As they float together, suspended beneath the night sky in the quietness of the evening, the scene portrays the fleeting, heady excitement of teenage romance, utterly engrossed in the moment, ramifications overlooked.

Approximately half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the heart of the movie. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale took center stage, and all the contextual information and backstories I had gleaned from the series’ initial episodes proved to be largely irrelevant. Despite being a canonical installment within the franchise, Reze Arc provides a easier entry point for newcomers — even if they haven’t seen its single episode. This method brings advantages, but it simultaneously limits some of the tension of the movie’s narrative.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a world where Devils embody specific evils (ranging from ideas like getting older and Darkness to terrifying entities like cockroaches or World War II). After being betrayed and murdered by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his loyal companion, Pochita, and comes back from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy fiends and the horrors they signify from existence.

Thrust into a brutal struggle between devils and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a alluring coffee server hiding a deadly secret — sparking a heartbreaking clash between the two where affection and survival collide. The movie picks up immediately following season 1, delving into Denji’s relationship with Reze as he grapples with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, Makima, forcing him to choose between passion, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

A Self-Contained Love Story Amidst a Larger World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our imperfect main character Denji becoming enamored with his counterpart almost immediately upon meeting. He’s a lonely boy looking for affection, which makes his heart vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s complex mythology and its extensive cast of characters, Reze Arc is very independent. Filmmaker the director recognizes this and ensures the romantic arc is at the center, instead of bogging it down with filler recaps for the uninitiated, especially when such details is crucial to the complete storyline.

Despite the protagonist’s flaws, it’s difficult not to sympathize with him. He’s still a adolescent, fumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his understanding of right and wrong. His desperate craving for affection makes him come off like a lovesick dog, although he’s prone to growling, biting, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a perfect match for Denji, an compelling seductive antagonist who finds her mark in our protagonist. You want to see Denji earn the affection of his love interest, even if Reze is clearly concealing something from him. So when her real identity is revealed, audiences cannot avoid hope they’ll in some way make it work, although internally, you know a positive outcome is not truly in the cards. Therefore, the stakes fail to seem as intense 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 little room for a love story like this among the more grim events that fans know are coming soon.

Stunning Visuals and Technical Execution

This movie’s visuals seamlessly blend traditional animation with computer-generated settings, providing impressive eye candy prior to the action begins. From vehicles to small desk fans, digital assets add depth and texture to every shot, allowing the 2D characters stand out strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which frequently showcases its digital elements and shifting settings, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, most noticeably during its explosive finale, where those models, while not unattractive, become easier to identify. These smooth, dynamic environments make the film’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Nonetheless, the technique shines brightest when it’s invisible, enhancing the vibrancy and motion of the hand-drawn art.

Final Thoughts and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, probably leaving first-time audiences pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Telling a self-contained narrative limits the tension of what should feel like a sprawling animated saga. It’s an illustration of why continuing a popular television series with a movie isn’t the optimal approach if it weakens the series’ general storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by tying up multiple seasons of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the issue completely by acting as a prequel to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly recklessly. However this does not prevent the movie from being a great experience, a excellent introduction, and a memorable love story.