Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. We’ve entered the last week of Aniween and I can think of no better way to wrap it up than with Chainsaw Man. The Rated R shonen has made a name for itself as being one of Shonen Jump’s best mangas. The anime brought more eyes to the series and in some ways improved the story where the manga failed. Jujutsu Kaisen’s ending only brought more people to the series, and everyone was waiting with anticipation for the second season. However, MAPPA was busy with a lot of other animes and didn’t have the bodies to spare on an anime of this magnitude. However, they had plenty of staff to spare on a movie. Released in 2025, the Reze Arc covers the Reze arc from the manga and is regarded as being one of the best arcs in the series. In the same year we got the first of three Demon Slayer movies, this movie received high praise as well and was even shown in American theatres for a short time. This was huge, in the past only Studio Ghibli films would receive this attention. To see two anime movies get shown in American theatres was proof of just how much the anime community had grown in the west and was continuing to grow. Let’s rev up that engine and take a look at Chainsaw Man the Movie: Reze Arc.
The movie starts with a dream sequence from Denji hearing Pochita’s voice behind a door, but Pochita warns him to never open it. Denji wakes up from the dream where we see the movie picks up after the events of the season 1 finale. We then get a nice opening sequence (where you can just tell the animators had a blast making this) and Denji gets reassigned to a new partner while Power gets her blood drained. It turns out she absorbed too much in the last fight and now they have to drain it to keep her under control. Denji’s new partner is Beam the shark devil who seems to be a big fan of Denji. The next day, Denji goes on a date with Makima (alright, Denji winning!) to the movies for a marathon watch (I remember when theatres used to do that. They need to bring those back). They dislike all the movies they see except for the last one which actually moved them to tears. After the date Denji is on cloud nine and while patrolling the streets with Beam, it starts to rain and he retreats to a phone booth for shelter (for those of you too young to know what that is, this is what we had to use before cell phones and it sucked). While there he meets the young lady named Reze voiced by Reina Ueda (Kanao from Demon Slayer) who deserves all the credit in the world for putting in an amazing performance as this character. She invites Denji to the café she works at where she flirts with him a bit and Denji doesn’t seem to mind as he seems to be developing feelings for her as well (first Makima and now her. When did he become such a player?). This causes him internal conflict as he still has feelings for Makima (does he choose the mature and cool beauty, the sweet and energetic cutie, or does he risk it all in for the mystery box? Scenes here: https://youtu.be/GX5Ljtsru6I?si=QrOPPwhdiaRagKM- and https://youtu.be/NRFTN6bndaI?si=7zp7rqIgIcE7Y-0v).
While Denji is enjoying himself, we see Aki got paired up with the Angel Devil as part of a test from Makima. Despite his looks, the Angel Devil is actually the second strongest hunter in the group and can create weapons from the lifeforce he steals from others. The problem is he’s lazy and apathetic. He doesn’t hate humanity but doesn’t care for them either (he could watch somebody get shot in front of them and he wouldn’t care one bit) which causes deep tension between him and Aki. Back to Denji, we see him and Reze continue to deepen their bonds with each other. He swings by the café everyday, they sneak into her school at night and even go skinning dipping in the pool (scene here: https://youtu.be/3i-2DIVJBjY?si=7NVPm0FSJXmV-_yl. Yep, you’re in love). When it starts to rain the two head back into the school where Reze goes to use the restroom and gets attacked by an assassin working with the Typhoon Devil (well this would explain all the rain and crazy weather patterns. Take that, global warming). As Denji tries to sort out his feelings, Reze has her own real-life horror game experience running away from the assassin who wants to use her to get to Denji. After she gets cornered on the roof she easily kills the assassin by choking him to death (scene here: https://youtu.be/WDaHYGKDfl4?si=Eh3o1i0r4uAkGsSQ. Damn, can’t do that in horror games). It finally gets revealed that she’s also a devil and forces the Typhoon Devil to work with her. The next day, Denji and Reze go to a festival and have a good time. While they get ready to watch the fireworks, Reze asks Denji to run away with her. Forget the devil hunting business and live a normal life with her. While that sounds good, Denji says no and she kisses him just as the fireworks go off (wow, two firework shows). As she kisses him, she bites his tongue off and shows it to him (well that’s traumatizing). As Denji begins to bleed out from his mouth, Reze gets ready to steal his heart, but he gets saved by Beam (oh hey I was wondering where he’s been this whole time) who reveals that she’s the Bomb Devil (scene here: https://youtu.be/6xk7yH36MEw?si=HVCaTjw9kRePAseQ).
From here, the movie goes into third gear (on the action and animation. They spent 2/3 of the movie getting you invested in the relationship, now it’s time for the gory violence you all know and love. This series gets its audience so well). After narrowly escaping Reze, Beam takes Denji to a Division 2 training faculty where Aki and the Angel Devil are. Beam catches them up on the situation just as Reze arrives and takes the agents of Division 2 down (scene here: https://youtu.be/pHkb0aOeGv0?si=eAg1ljFk5oayq-kY). After getting some blood, Denji regains consciousness and tries to fight Reze but is quickly overwhelmed by her power and almost dies (scene here: https://youtu.be/bEYjXjX8_MM?si=WKwBvUvcHJMy-o1N). While the Angel Devil heals up Denji, Aki and the Fiend Devil take on Reze but don’t fare much better and things only get crazier when the Typhoon Devil finally appears. Once Denji is all healed up again, he uses Beam as a horse to fight against Reze and the Typhoon Devil. This whole fight scene is great. It’s fast paced, exciting, gory, animated well, and has awesome music that gets you pumped (when I saw this in the theatre me and everyone else had a blast watching this. We were cheering, laughing, and rocking out to the music). Denji and Beam manage to defeat the Typhoon Devil leaving only Reze who takes out Beam leaving only Denji to defend himself. Realizing he can’t beat her in close combat, Denji switches to long-range attacks using his chains (smart). He manages to tie her up and drags both of them into the water where she can’t use her bombs. They sink to the seabed and remain there for some time until they’re rescued by Beam (full fight scene here: https://youtu.be/HpTS0ioH1os?si=LJm-qOy_sIryxBT9). Reze regains consciousness on the beach next to Denji where she admits defeat and says she never had feelings for Denji, but he doesn’t believe her because she helped him learn how to swim (exactly. If you really didn’t have feelings for him you would have taken him out on the first day. You like him and wanted to be with him forever even if that meant angering the Gun Devil). As she prepares to run away, Denji asks to join her. Despite everything that happened, he still likes her (something about women trying to kill him turns him on. Kinky stuff) and wants to be with her. He makes plans to meet her at the café tomorrow and at first she plans to leave without him, but decides not to. On her way to the café, she gets intercepted and killed by Makima and the Angel Devil (scene here: https://youtu.be/XNcnMQbxnSM?si=tqaFRur74tbx9-Is, not to spoil anything, but in hindsight this should have been the moment that tipped us off that Makima is more than what she seems). In the post credits we see Denji wait at the café dejected until Power arrives believing the bouquet of flowers, he has is for her.
Final Thoughts
And that was the Reze Arc. Definitely lives up to all the praise it’s received. The bittersweet romance between Denji and Reze is at the center of this movie. No matter what Reze says she fell in love with Denji and he in turn fell in love with her. It was actually impressive to see her succeed in actually convincing Denji to run away with her. Despite everything she did I was sad to see her die at the end. I really did like her and felt she and Denji were a good match for each other. She was the first person to see Denji as a person instead of the Chainsaw Devil. Outside of this story we get Aki and Angel’s story. While there’s not a whole lot of development the two do reach a point in their relationship where they’re not friends but are mutual with each other. The final third of the anime is the best part of the movie. The fighting, music, animation, and speed is all great and the build up to it was worth it. They did a good job getting us invested in Denji and Reze’s relationship, and then to see it all just explode (literally) in that final third was great.
Some people have said the pacing was a little fast for them and yeah I felt that too, but I still enjoyed it and even though I’m not the biggest fan of teen love stories this one was told in a good way that made you enjoy the movie. Like I said, the animation is great here. The characters move fluidly, the camerawork is fantastic, and the colors amplify the emotions of scenes. The fighting in the final third was wild, crazy, and fun to watch. Like I said, my theatre exploded with joy in the final half of this movie. It was that good and some even cried at the end.
Final Score
The final score for the Reze Arc is an 8/10. A great movie and a good follow-up to the first season that sees Denji grow mentally and emotionally. Reze may be gone, but the impact she left on Denji will remain with him forever. If you’re a fan of the series and haven’t seen the movie yet give it a watch. It’s worth your time. There’s been no word on when the second season will drop, but I’m looking forward to when it does and seeing Denji’s growth. Until then, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
