Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc: Go With an Anime Otaku to 'Splain Things For You

By John Kirk

Rating: B

If anime isn’t your thing, then you shouldn’t see Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc.

If you’re curious about the genre … then I still recommend you don’t see this movie.

However, if you take someone with you who understands the 300+ pages of manga and the umpteen different episodes of the anime TV show that went before the making of this film, AND who believes that Denji, aka Chainsaw Man (Kikunosuke Toya) is the most redeemable character ever, then you might have a chance at learning something.

Well, that’s what I did. Look, the last time I reviewed an anime film (Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX – Beginning), fans literally stormed the beaches of the internet, gnashing their pointed demon teeth in rage (see? I did learn something), claiming that I knew nothing about anime.

Maybe it isn’t my forte, but at least I can appreciate a well constructed story. In this case, I was genuinely curious and went in with an open mind.

However, when a guy who can materialize chainsaws out of his hands and head, ride a legged shark in the wind, guiding it by the chains that come out of the saws – AND the shark neighs like a horse … well, that’s a lot to swallow.

The basic story behind this film is that it’s a story arc – a segment out of the original manga. It’s a small section of what is a massive storyline and it’s important to know the background before you watch the film. That’s the first criticism. You can’t walk into this film, cold turkey. You really need to know the backstory.

So, here’s the very quick upshot. The organization, Public Safety, employs powered Demon Hunters to hunt and kill, well, demons and devils. Yeah, there’s a ranking system. However, these employees are somewhat demonic themselves. That brings us to our hero, Denji, aka Lord Chainsaw.

Denji’s as dumb as a stump, but to the fans, he’s lovable. He doesn’t know anything except killing demons and devils. He does this by transforming into Chainsaw Man with the aforementioned powers. He lives with his fellow demon hunters, Aki and Power. We only see very little of Power in the film and Aki shows up towards the end to help out Denji, but that’s it for their contribution.

He has a massive crush on his boss, Makima (Tomori Kusunoki), the soulless but beautiful head of Public Safety. But Denji knows very little about women so when he is approached by the seductive Reze (Reina Ueda), he can’t help but feel conflicted in his feelings and falls for her.

However - and here’s the beginning of the arc – Reze is an ally of the Gun Devil, the most powerful bad guy there is in this world. She wants Denji’s heart and the battle begins.

Now, the backstory that helps you prepare for these characters is that Denji’s heart is actually his dog (with a chainsaw as well), Makima has powers we don’t know about and Denji’s room-mates have pages and pages of story in which Aki only has five years to live at this point and every time he uses his powers, that lifespan diminishes.

There are other supporting characters, like the giant baby devil, Typhoon, the teachers at the Demon Hunter training school and there’s also the backstories of Reze and the Gun Devil himself, which only get bare mentions. I mean, all the devils want Denji’s heart for a reason that I haven’t been able to ascertain even though I had a human cheat sheet accompanying me.

However, if you take my advice, that’s the way to go if you want a chance at appreciating this film. You see, the film apparently does an actually good job of staying true to the source material. The characters are true to the manga and uses the anime as canon material. There’s a scene where Denji devours a flower because that’s one of his hallmark traits – he will eat anything organic, if given a chance.

The storyline is immensely accurate, in terms of the original material. With the attention that fans pay to canon in their fandoms, that’s of grave importance and it’s good to see film creators respecting their comic creator peers.

But there’s no way anyone can walk into this film without this back knowledge and see this it as something they’ll immediately understand. At least the major portion of the film is combat. But even then, but when Reze (aka Bomb Devil) explodes over everything and everyone and then regenerates, non-fans won’t understand that she regenerates after drinking blood.

Well, ALL devils do. Duh.

That’s the major flaw but also the source of the film’s strength: it’s a niche film for fans of the manga. The music is pretty good though, and at the screening, dozens of fans in cosplay were rocking to the beat of “Kick Back”, the theme to the preceding anime show. In fact, I overheard a fan behind me saying that he had been playing in his car all the way over. So, the film succeeds on fan appeal and that’s obviously who will thoroughly and absolutely love this film.

Gotta go listen to Kick Back now. At least I got a real appreciation for the music.

Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc. Directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara. Voice cast: Kikonosuke Toya, Tomori Kusonoke, Reina Ueda. Chainsaw Man: The Movie – The Reze Arc is in theatres, October 24.