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Two youngsters experience a private, gentle moment at the neighborhood secondary school’s open-air swimming pool late at night. While they drift together, hanging beneath the stars in the stillness of the night, the sequence captures the fleeting, exhilarating excitement of adolescent romance, completely caught up in the moment, consequences forgotten.

Approximately half an hour into Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, it became clear these scenes are the core of the film. The romantic tale took center stage, and all the background details and backstories I had gleaned from the series’ first season turned out to be mostly irrelevant. Despite being a official installment within the series, Reze Arc offers a more accessible entry point for newcomers — regardless of they missed its single episode. 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 follows Denji, a indebted Devil Hunter in a universe where Devils embody particular evils (ranging from concepts like getting older and Darkness to terrifying entities like cockroaches or historical conflicts). After being deceived and murdered by the criminal syndicate, he makes a pact with his loyal devil-dog, his pet, and comes back from the dead as a chainsaw-human hybrid with the power to completely destroy fiends and the terrors they signify from existence.

Plunged into a brutal conflict between demons and hunters, Denji meets a new character — a charming barista concealing a deadly secret — igniting a heartbreaking confrontation between the pair where affection and existence collide. This film continues right after the first season, delving into the main character’s relationship with his love interest as he grapples with his emotions for her and his devotion to his manipulative superior, Makima, compelling him to decide among passion, faithfulness, and survival.

An Independent Love Story Within a Broader World

Reze Arc is fundamentally a lovers-to-enemies plot, with our imperfect main character the hero falling for his counterpart right away upon meeting. He is a lonely young man seeking affection, which renders him unreliable and up for grabs on a first-come, first-served. Consequently, in spite of all of Chainsaw Man’s complex lore and its extensive ensemble, Reze Arc is very independent. Director the director understands this and guarantees the romantic arc is at the center, instead of bogging it down with unnecessary summaries for the new viewers, especially when none of that really matters to the complete storyline.

Despite the protagonist’s flaws, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He’s after all a teenager, stumbling his way through a world that’s warped his understanding of right and wrong. His intense longing for love portrays him like a lovesick puppy, although he’s prone to barking, biting, and making a mess along the way. His love interest is a ideal match for Denji, an compelling femme fatale who targets her mark in our protagonist. You want to see the main character win the ire of his love interest, even if she is obviously hiding something from him. So when her true nature is unveiled, you still cannot avoid wish they’ll somehow make it work, although deep down, you know a happy ending is not truly in the cards. As such, the tension don’t feel as high as they ought to be since their relationship is fated. This is compounded by that the movie serves as a direct sequel to the first season, leaving minimal space for a romance like this amid the more grim events that fans know are approaching.

Breathtaking Animation and Technical Execution

This movie’s graphics seamlessly blend traditional animation with 3D environments, delivering stunning visual appeal prior to the excitement kicks in. Including cars to tiny desk fans, digital assets add depth and texture to each shot, making the 2D characters stand out strikingly. In contrast to Demon Slayer, which often showcases its digital elements and changing settings, Reze Arc employs them more sparingly, particularly evident during its action-packed finale, where such elements, while not unattractive, are more apparent to identify. These smooth, dynamic environments make the film’s fights both visually bombastic and surprisingly easy to understand. Nonetheless, the technique excels most when it’s invisible, improving the vibrancy and movement of the 2D animation.

Final Impressions and Broader Implications

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc serves as a good starting place, likely resulting in new fans satisfied, but it additionally carries a drawback. Telling a self-contained narrative limits the stakes of what should feel like a expansive animated saga. It’s an example of why following up a popular anime season with a movie isn’t the optimal strategy if it undermines the franchise’s general narrative possibilities.

While Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle found success by concluding multiple installments of animated series with an grand film, and JuJutsu Kaisen 0 sidestepped the issue entirely by serving as a backstory to its well-known series, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc charges forward, perhaps a bit foolishly. However this does not prevent the film from proving to be a enjoyable time, a terrific point of entry, and a memorable love story.