Review: Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

In an era when nearly every popular anime is being refashioned for the big screen, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc could have easily felt like a victory lap, a chance to cash in on the roaring success of the 2022 TV series and give fans another fix of bloody catharsis. Instead, director Tatsuya Yoshihara and writer Hiroshi Seko deliver something far more confident and surprisingly tender: a bruised, romantic fever dream disguised as a gore-soaked blockbuster. It’s both a continuation and a culmination, a film that trusts its audience to already know the players, and rewards that familiarity with an emotional depth that might be unexpected to newcomers.

For those who need a quick primer, Chainsaw Man takes place in a world where “Devils” are born from human fears. Denji, a dirt-poor teenager, merges with his pet devil Pochita to become the titular Chainsaw Man, a walking engine of destruction employed by Japan’s Public Safety Division to hunt monsters. He’s also just a kid desperate for affection, and it’s that desire, more than any devil, that fuels the Reze Arc.

The movie opens not with blood, but with cinema. Denji sits beside his boss and object of affection, the enigmatic Makima, during a marathon movie date. They cry at the same moment in a film, an awkward shared tenderness that momentarily bridges the gulf between them. It’s a small, human scene, a reminder that beneath the mechanical roar of his chainsaws beats the heart of a lonely boy still trying to understand what love feels like.

Enter Reze. Voiced with luminous warmth by Reina Ueda, she’s a barista who seems to float through Tokyo’s rain-slick streets like a dream Denji might be afraid to wake from. Their meet-cute is drenched in cliché, sheltering from the rain, nervous laughter, but it’s all rendered with MAPPA’s staggering visual detail. The sunlight breaking through as Denji first sees her smile feels like a joke and a confession rolled into one: yes, he’s falling in love, and yes, the world is about to explode.

And explode it does. Reze Arc spends its first half as a sweet, slightly awkward romance, part Your Name, part Evil Dead 2, before detonating into one of the most exhilarating action spectacles of the year. When the truth about Reze’s identity surfaces, the film drops the mask of melancholy and lunges headfirst into chaos. Chainsaws clash with bombs in a hyper-kinetic ballet of fire and flesh, and Yoshihara stages every swing, sprint, and scream with painterly precision. The climactic battle between Denji and Reze is as tragic as it is spectacular, a love scene conducted through explosions.

What separates Reze Arc from the typical anime-movie cash-in isn’t just the quality of its jaw-dropping animation, but its understanding that all this spectacle means nothing without heartbreak to ground it. Denji’s chainsaws aren’t just weapons; they’re coping mechanisms, distractions from a world that keeps using and abandoning him. Reze, too, is trapped, another pawn in a system that rewards power and punishes tenderness. Their connection, fleeting and doomed, gives the film its emotional spine.

Seko’s script is patient enough to let these moments breathe. A nighttime swim, captured in woozy slow motion, conveys more adolescent vulnerability than a dozen monologues could. Even the film’s stillness feels charged with danger, like love might be just another devil waiting to strike. The final act doesn’t just burn down the city, it burns down any illusions Denji has about who he is or what he deserves.

Not everything lands perfectly. Supporting players like Power and Aki are reduced to cameos, and newcomers will find themselves lost amid the film’s brisk mythology. But those aren’t flaws so much as the price of commitment. Yoshihara isn’t interested in onboarding; he’s interested in immersion. And in that sense, Reze Arc is pure cinema, visceral, self-assured, and unapologetically for the fans who’ve been there since Denji first revved up his heart.

By the time the credits roll, it’s clear why Chainsaw Man works so well in this format. The film’s violence is operatic, its emotions raw, its beauty accidental and fleeting. It’s a story about monsters who long to be loved, and lovers who can’t help but destroy each other. You leave the theater dazed, not because of the blood, but because somewhere between the carnage and the quiet, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc finds a soul worth bleeding for.

4/5