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A pair of teenagers share a intimate, tender moment at the local high school’s outdoor swimming pool late at night. While they drift as one, suspended beneath the stars in the quietness of the evening, the sequence portrays the fleeting, heady excitement of teenage love, utterly caught up in the moment, consequences forgotten.

About 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and every bit of contextual information and backstories I had gleaned from the anime’s first season proved to be mostly unnecessary. Despite being a official entry 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 simultaneously limits a portion of the tension of the film’s story.

Created by the original creator, Chainsaw Man follows the protagonist, a indebted Devil Hunter in a universe where demons embody specific evils (ranging from concepts like getting older and Darkness to specific horrors like cockroaches or historical conflicts). When he’s deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his loyal devil-dog, his pet, and comes back from the dead as a part-human chainsaw wielder with the ability to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a brutal struggle between demons and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a charming barista hiding a lethal mystery — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the two where love and existence collide. This film continues right after the first season, delving into the main character’s connection with Reze as he wrestles with his feelings for her and his loyalty to his controlling boss, his employer, forcing him to choose between desire, faithfulness, and survival.

An Independent Romantic Tale Amidst a Broader Universe

Reze Arc is fundamentally a romance-to-rivalry story, with our fallible main character Denji becoming enamored with his counterpart right away upon introduction. He is a lonely boy looking for affection, which makes his heart vulnerable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. As a result, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly independent. Filmmaker the director understands this and guarantees the love story is at the forefront, instead of bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, especially when none of that really matters to the complete plot.

Regardless of the protagonist’s flaws, it’s hard not to feel for him. He is still a teenager, fumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his understanding of morality. His desperate craving for affection portrays him like a infatuated dog, although he’s prone to growling, biting, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a perfect pairing for Denji, an effective seductive antagonist who targets her prey in our hero. You want to see the main character win the ire of his love interest, despite Reze is clearly concealing a secret from him. So when her real identity is unveiled, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way make it work, even though deep down, you know a positive outcome is not truly in the plan. Therefore, the stakes don’t feel as intense as they should be since their romance is fated. It doesn’t help that the movie acts as a immediate follow-up to Season 1, allowing minimal space for a love story like this amid the more grim events that followers are aware are approaching.

Breathtaking Visuals and Artistic Execution

The film’s visuals effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning eye candy prior to the excitement kicks in. Including vehicles to small desk fans, digital assets add depth and texture to each scene, allowing the 2D characters pop beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often highlights its digital elements and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, most noticeably during its action-packed climax, where such elements, while not unattractive, become easier to identify. These smooth, ever-shifting environments make the movie’s fights both spectacular to watch and surprisingly simple to understand. Nonetheless, the method excels most when it’s invisible, enhancing the vibrancy and movement of the 2D animation.

Final Thoughts and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good point of entry, likely leaving new fans pleased, but it additionally carries a downside. Telling a standalone story limits the tension of what should feel like a sprawling anime epic. It’s an example of why following up a successful anime season with a movie isn’t the best strategy if it undermines the series’ general storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by tying up multiple installments of animated series with an grand movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 avoided the problem completely by serving as a prequel to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly foolishly. However that doesn’t stop the film from proving to be a enjoyable experience, a terrific point of entry, and a memorable romantic tale.