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Two teenagers share a intimate, tender moment at the local high school’s outdoor swimming pool late at night. As they float together, hanging under the night sky in the quietness of the night, the sequence portrays the fleeting, heady excitement of teenage love, utterly caught up in the present, consequences overlooked.

About 30 minutes into The Chainsaw Man Film: Reze Arc, I realized such moments are the heart of the film. Denji and Reze’s love story took center stage, and every bit of contextual information and character histories previously known from the anime’s initial episodes turned out to be mostly unnecessary. Despite being a canonical entry within the series, Reze Arc provides a easier starting place for newcomers — regardless of they haven’t seen its prior content. This method has its benefits, but it simultaneously limits some of the urgency of the film’s story.

Created by the original creator, Chainsaw Man chronicles the protagonist, a debt-ridden fiend fighter in a world where demons embody specific dangers (including concepts like getting older and Darkness to terrifying entities like cockroaches or historical conflicts). When he’s betrayed and killed by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his loyal companion, his pet, and comes back from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy Devils and the terrors they represent from existence.

Plunged into a violent struggle between devils and hunters, the hero encounters a new character — a charming barista hiding a deadly mystery — sparking a tragic clash between the two where affection and survival intersect. This film picks up right after season 1, delving into Denji’s relationship with his love interest as he wrestles with his feelings for her and his devotion to his controlling boss, his employer, compelling him to decide among passion, faithfulness, and self-preservation.

An Independent Romantic Tale Amidst a Broader World

Reze Arc is inherently a romance-to-rivalry story, with our fallible protagonist Denji falling for Reze right away upon meeting. He is a isolated young man looking for love, which makes his heart unreliable and easily swayed on a first-come, first-served. As a result, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s intricate lore and its extensive cast of characters, Reze Arc is very independent. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara recognizes this and ensures the romantic arc is at the forefront, instead of weighing it down with unnecessary summaries for the uninitiated, particularly since such details is crucial to the complete plot.

Despite Denji’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He’s still a teenager, stumbling his way through a reality that’s warped his sense of right and wrong. His desperate longing for affection portrays him like a infatuated puppy, although he’s prone to growling, snapping, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a perfect pairing for Denji, an compelling femme fatale who targets her prey in our hero. Viewers hope to see the main character earn the affection of his affection, even if Reze is clearly concealing something from him. Thus when her real identity is unveiled, audiences cannot avoid hope they’ll somehow succeed, even though internally, it is known a positive outcome is not truly in the cards. As such, the stakes fail to seem as intense as they should be since their romance is doomed. It doesn’t help that the movie acts as a direct sequel to the first season, leaving minimal space for a love story like this among the darker events that fans are aware are coming soon.

Stunning Animation and Artistic Execution

This movie’s graphics effortlessly combine 2D animation with computer-generated settings, delivering stunning eye candy prior to the action begins. Including vehicles to small desk fans, digital assets add depth and texture to each scene, allowing the 2D characters stand out strikingly. Unlike Demon Slayer, which frequently highlights its digital elements and shifting backgrounds, Reze Arc uses them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed finale, where such elements, though not unappealing, are more apparent to spot. These fluid, dynamic backgrounds render the movie’s battles both visually bombastic and surprisingly simple to follow. Nonetheless, the method excels most when it’s unnoticeable, improving the dynamic range and motion of the 2D animation.

Concluding Thoughts and Broader Considerations

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a solid starting place, probably resulting in first-time audiences pleased, but it also has a drawback. Telling a self-contained narrative limits the tension of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. This is an example of why continuing a successful television series with a movie isn’t the optimal strategy if it undermines the series’ 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 avoided the issue entirely by acting as a prequel to its popular series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, maybe a slightly recklessly. But that doesn’t stop the movie from being a great experience, a excellent point of entry, and a unforgettable romantic tale.