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A pair of teenagers experience a private, tender moment at the neighborhood high school’s outdoor swimming pool after hours. While they drift together, hanging under the night sky in the quietness of the evening, the sequence captures the ephemeral, heady thrill of teenage love, completely engrossed in the moment, consequences overlooked.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the heart of the film. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale took center stage, and every bit of background details and character histories I had gleaned from the anime’s first season turned out to be largely unnecessary. Despite being a canonical entry within the franchise, Reze Arc provides a easier entry point for first-time viewers — regardless of they haven’t seen its single episode. This method has its benefits, but it also hinders a portion of the urgency of the movie’s story.

Developed by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden Devil Hunter in a world where Devils embody particular evils (ranging from ideas like getting older and obscurity to terrifying entities like insects or historical conflicts). After being deceived and killed by the yakuza, he forms a contract with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and returns from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to permanently erase fiends and the terrors they signify from reality.

Thrust into a brutal struggle between devils and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a charming coffee server hiding a lethal mystery — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where affection and survival collide. This film continues right after the first season, delving into Denji’s relationship with Reze as he wrestles with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his manipulative superior, his employer, forcing him to decide among desire, loyalty, and survival.

A Self-Contained Romantic Tale Within a Broader World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our fallible main character the hero becoming enamored with Reze right away upon introduction. He’s a isolated young man seeking love, which renders him unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come basis. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its large ensemble, Reze Arc is very independent. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara understands this and ensures the romantic arc is at the center, rather than weighing it down with filler recaps for the new viewers, especially when none of that is crucial to the overall plot.

Regardless of the protagonist’s flaws, it’s hard not to feel for him. He is after all a adolescent, stumbling his way through a reality that’s distorted his understanding of morality. His desperate craving for affection portrays him like a infatuated puppy, even if he’s likely to growling, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a ideal match for him, an effective femme fatale who finds her mark in our hero. You want to see the main character win the ire of his affection, even if Reze is clearly hiding something from him. Thus when her real identity is revealed, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way make it work, although internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the cards. As such, the tension fail to seem as high as they ought to be since their relationship is doomed. This is compounded by that the film acts as a direct sequel to Season 1, leaving minimal space for a romance like this amid the more grim developments that fans are aware are approaching.

Breathtaking Visuals and Technical Craftsmanship

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering impressive visual appeal prior to the excitement begins. Including vehicles to tiny desk fans, 3D models add depth and texture to every scene, making the 2D characters stand out beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often showcases its 3D assets and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed finale, where those models, though not unappealing, are more apparent to spot. Such smooth, ever-shifting backgrounds render the movie’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Nonetheless, the method shines brightest when it’s unnoticeable, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the hand-drawn art.

Final Thoughts and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid starting place, probably leaving first-time audiences pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Telling a standalone narrative restricts the tension of what ought to seem like a sprawling anime epic. This is an example of why following up a popular television series with a film is not the optimal approach if it undermines the series’ general storytelling potential.

Whereas Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by concluding multiple seasons of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the problem entirely by acting as a prequel to its popular show, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly foolishly. But that doesn’t stop the movie from being a great experience, a terrific point of entry, and a unforgettable love story.