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A pair of youngsters share a private, tender moment at the local secondary school’s open-air swimming pool late at night. While they drift as one, hanging beneath the night sky in the quietness of the evening, the sequence portrays the fleeting, heady excitement of adolescent love, utterly caught up in the present, ramifications forgotten.

Approximately 30 minutes into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, I realized these scenes are the core of the film. Denji and Reze’s romantic tale became the focus, and all the background details and backstories I had gleaned from the series’ first season proved to be largely irrelevant. Despite being a official installment within the series, Reze Arc provides a more accessible entry point for first-time viewers — even if they haven’t seen its prior content. The approach has its benefits, but it also hinders a portion of the tension of the movie’s story.

Created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where Devils embody particular dangers (ranging from ideas like Aging and Darkness to specific horrors like insects or historical conflicts). After being deceived and killed by the criminal syndicate, he forms a contract with his faithful devil-dog, Pochita, and comes back from the deceased as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy Devils and the horrors they signify from reality.

Plunged into a violent conflict between devils and hunters, Denji encounters Reze — a charming barista hiding a deadly mystery — sparking a tragic confrontation between the two where affection and existence intersect. This film picks up immediately following season 1, exploring Denji’s relationship with his love interest as he grapples with his emotions for her and his loyalty to his controlling boss, his employer, compelling him to decide among passion, loyalty, and survival.

An Independent Romantic Tale Within a Larger World

Reze Arc is inherently a lovers-to-enemies story, with our imperfect main character Denji falling for his counterpart almost immediately upon meeting. He is a lonely boy seeking love, which renders him vulnerable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. As a result, despite all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate mythology and its large cast of characters, Reze Arc is highly self-contained. Filmmaker Tatsuya Yoshihara recognizes this and ensures the love story is at the forefront, instead of bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, especially when none of that really matters to the overall storyline.

Despite the protagonist’s imperfections, it’s hard not to feel for him. He’s still a teenager, fumbling his way through a world that’s distorted his sense of right and wrong. His desperate craving for love makes him come off like a infatuated dog, even if he’s likely to barking, snapping, and causing chaos along the way. His love interest is a perfect pairing for him, an effective seductive antagonist who finds her prey in our protagonist. Viewers hope to see the main character earn the affection of his affection, even if Reze is obviously hiding a secret from him. So when her true nature is revealed, you still can’t help but hope they’ll in some way succeed, even though internally, you know a positive outcome is never really in the plan. Therefore, the tension fail to seem as high as they should be since their relationship is fated. This is compounded by that the film acts as a direct sequel to the first season, allowing little room for a romance like this among the darker developments that followers are aware are approaching.

Stunning Animation and Artistic Execution

The film’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning eye candy even before the action begins. Including vehicles to tiny office appliances, digital assets enhance realism and detail to each shot, making the animated figures stand out beautifully. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often showcases its 3D assets and changing settings, Reze Arc employs them less frequently, particularly evident during its explosive climax, where such elements, while not unattractive, become easier to spot. Such fluid, ever-shifting backgrounds render the movie’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly simple to understand. Nonetheless, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, enhancing the dynamic range and movement of the 2D animation.

Concluding Impressions and Wider Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good starting place, likely leaving new fans satisfied, but it also has a downside. Telling a self-contained story limits the stakes of what ought to seem like a sprawling animated saga. It’s an example of why continuing a popular anime season with a movie is not the best strategy if it weakens the franchise’s overall storytelling potential.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle succeeded by tying up multiple seasons of animated series with an epic movie, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the problem entirely by acting as a prequel to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, perhaps a slightly recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the film from proving to be a great time, a terrific point of entry, and a unforgettable romantic tale.