Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc Review

When it first premiered in Shonen Jump, I was floored by Chainsaw Man. It was so gritty and violent I was amazed they published it in the same comic as My Hero Academia and One Piece. The tone in the fandom, for most of its run, was whether or not it would get cancelled for controversy, almost every chapter was intensely violent and the series dealt with sex in a more direct way than I had seen in a manga before, at least one aimed at adolescents. And yet, Chainsaw Man was also the most mature series I had read from the publication. Over the course of some hundred hours, series protagonist Denji learns some hard lessons about friends, sex, and relationships in a way that could save a young reader a lot of heartache. When the series finally got its anime adaptation it was given a dozen episodes so close to film level quality I was floored to find some didn’t care for its grounded style, hoping for a more trippy color scheme, but I couldn’t complain. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect.

Despite Chainsaw Man’s spartan 100 chapters, the series has not progressed past this point. In the three years since the anime ended, Studio Mappa instead opted to adapt the next arc as a theatrical feature, which has had the unfortunate, but inevitable effect of dragging out series production. It is my one and only complaint, as having seen the film the team has done an extraordinary job bringing the iconic manga arc to life.

Of mice and men

For the uninitiated Chainsaw Man follows Denji, a young man growing up in a world where devils are both real and need to be hunted down before they can kill humans for food. Making a contract with a dying devil, Denji is now able to enter a sort of half-devil form. His unusual circumstance brings him under the purview of the Public Safety Devil Hunters, a government organization that handles investigation and exterminations of devils. The film doesn’t offer much in explanation. Like most tie-in films, it’s expected that you’ve already seen the series it’s attached to, and this is the only thing preventing me from recommending Reze Arc as a standalone film.

Chainsaw Man carries a heavy influence from cinema, something series creator Tatsuki Fujimoto incorporates in all his works. Here it’s paid off big time. It’s hard not to compare Reze Arc to the spew of Demon Slayer films, most notable Infinity Castle, which is still showing at local theaters here. That film is little more than a collection of episodes covering a series of fights in an arc; it begins with the story in motion and ends with it unresolved. Chainsaw Man starts with it’s heroes in a cool down period, its core conflict introduced and resolved in its 90-minute runtime. Having a proper framework to hang its story on may feel like a low bar to clear, but it’s one very few films in this context can do.

The story of the film proper is simple: Denji, having made headway on a relationship with his crush/boss Makima, suddenly finds himself in the company of Reze, a young waitress at a nearby cafe who seems smitten with him. Now Denji must navigate the complex feelings he harbors for both, something that seemed impossible for him just a few months earlier. If it sounds like a plot from a romantic comedy more than a horror action flick, it is. Reze Arc fully embraces the cutesy quality of its story and shows remarkable restraint. For nearly the entire first half of the film there’s no real action to speak of, it’s entirely character driven drama.

Sugarsweet ultraviolence

That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Reze Arc is full of the grotesque imagery that so enthralled me when the series began publication, but it’s in small doses to start. Reze Arc’s greatest strength is maybe how effortlessly it shifts between genres. The film takes us from a warm sunny cafe to a serial killer’s den to a wartorn town with surprising grace. There’s only one real hiccup in the structure, that being the transition from the school to the festival in the middle of the film. In the manga, the gaps between chapters allow for any amount of time to pass, but the film is far less forgiving with time and the jump feels a bit sudden. An additional scene, perhaps with our B-plot group, would help to smooth out the transition, especially as said group’s circumstance in the last act feels poorly set up. 

It’s a flaw that carries over from the manga it’s adapting. Over the past few years as I’ve read more and more manga I’ve grown to appreciate the purity and the dynamism the medium gives artists. So rarely does an anime properly convey the unique style of a given artist, often losing something in the process. With Chainsaw Man, the manga carries a coarse quality. Everyone, even the beautiful, have a mundane quality I found charming. The anime smooths out these edges, beautifying the whole work. It’s a change that works for most of the subject matter and I consider it more of an alternate take than an outright down or upgrade, but with Reze Arc it feels like the team have overshadowed the original. The film’s choices in framing, color, and music elevate it so much it’ll be hard for me to not just watch the film instead when I cross it on my yearly reread.

Chaotic and cozy

When it comes to anime, many teams have a tendency to overanimate big moments. It’s a natural impulse, to pull out all the stops and push it as far as you can for the climax, but it’s ended up backfiring a few too many times, with sequences that lose all sense of weight and become eclectic messes. Reze Arc avoids this, staying clean and eligible throughout, only dipping into absurdity in the film’s later segments, mirroring Denji’s mental state and heightening the Looney Tunes quality innate to the series blend of absurdity and hyper-violence. Even the one criticism of the anime I agree with, it’s generally muted color palette, is addressed. Splashes of neon color find themselves in climactic moments, furthering the alien quality the devils have and driving home the tone the series has honed so well.

The Reze Arc of Chainsaw Man is not the end of the series, and in hindsight, it’s not even a particularly important part of the story. But it is one that feels massive to fans, and is full of moments that took the work from being a quirky fun ride to something that had the potential to be an all-timer. To see it brought to life so lovingly is both a testament to the animation team and to the beauty of the original series. Few adaptations do such a good job with such great material. My biggest problem with the whole thing is it can’t quite stand on its own, because the story is such a beautiful little tragedy I want it to be as accessible as it can possibly be.

Dylan Shirley