Exactly how does one go about commencing a review for something titled Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc? Some useful context is in order: Chainsaw Man began life as a (still-running) manga series created by Tatsuki Fujimoto, with the first volume originally published in 2018. The series posits an alternate reality where the Cold War has extended into the 1990s and supernatural “Devils” roam the earth, feeding off the collective fear and negative energy of humanity in order to strengthen their ranks. Devils typically exist as the living embodiment of specific, tangible objects or beings, ranging from various weaponry, predatory animals, and natural disasters to more abstract concepts like disease and even death, while a small faction can possess a human corpse to be reborn as “Fiends.” Keeping these hostile entities in check are organizations like the Public Safety Division, which has tasked a unit of Devil Hunters to investigate and eradicate any threat against humanity. This specialized team includes Denji, our intrepid 16-year-old protagonist who once found himself on the nasty end of a Yakuza deal gone wrong but now has the power to become the titular Chainsaw Man, a Devil-Human hybrid who received his powers from Pochita, an adorable, puppy dog-esque creature whose body took the place of Denji’s heart. With a pull of a ripcord protruding from his chest, Denji’s arms and head can suddenly transform into a trio of deadly chainsaw blades, perfect forcombating foes and laying waste to anything in his path. Since its debut, Chainsaw Man has only exploded in popularity, inevitably spawning an anime adaptation that premiered in 2022, running for twelve episodes across a single season and covering the story’s first few narrative arcs. But despite the critical acclaim and commercial success that followed, it’s been a long three years since Chainsaw Man’s anime debut. So it’s an exciting development that we now finally have our follow-up in Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, which has condensed the manga’s next major storyline to fit within a single theatrical film, reuniting Denji and the gang for their latest challenge. Enough time has passed, but the question remains: was it worth the wait?
Resoundingly, the answer is “Yes!” With plenty of thrilling combat sequences that offer generous amounts of bloodletting and gruesome bodily harm, along with a coterie of vividly realized creature designs, Chainsaw Man has always been a first-rate action/horror series, one that imagines the possibility of what a CAT III-rated X-Men series would potentially look like. But Chainsaw Man strikes a careful balance in tone, also working brilliantly as a workplace comedy and a gratifying look at adolescence. Denji (voiced by Kikunosuke Toya in the original Japanese track) may be our hero, but he’s also a confused, aimless, and perpetually horny teenager, one who has been groomed into doing the bidding of others without any inclination to act on his own. Reze Arc picks up right where season one left off, finding Denji more lost than ever when his usual comrade, Power (Fairouz Ai), a brash and antagonistic Blood Fiend, is temporarily pulled from duty to exsanguinate her body. His other usual partner, human Aki Hayakawa (Shogo Sakata), has been paired with the Angel Devil (Maaya Uchida), an apathetic being who lives up to the paradoxical nature of his name: with the touch of his hand, he can drain the life force from anyone and send them peacefully into death, but as a Devil he enjoys watching others suffer. The only constant in Denji’s life is Beam (Natsuki Hanae), an overzealous Shark Fiend who worships the ground Denji stands on, much to our hero’s chagrin. Hoping to break Denji out of his funk, supervisor Makima (Tomori Kusunoki) takes a break from hunting the elusive and dangerous Gun Devil to accompany him on a day of cinema-hopping, indulging in various action, comedy, romance, horror, and drama films. Most of what they see leaves the two completely unimpressed — Denji, who has a major crush on Makima, is really just more than thrilled to be in her presence — but the final film leaves them on a tender note that touches both of their hearts. “I only find about one out of every ten movies interesting, myself,” Makima explains. “But I’ve had that one movie change my life.”
And change Denji’s life it does! Now bursting with feeling and compassion, his world is irrevocably altered when he meets Reze (Reina Ueda), a winsome young gal who joins Denji in a phone booth to shelter from the rain. Though he lacks the experience and social grace of someone fit for the dating scene, Denji still can’t help but find himself utterly delighted by her, and she seems genuinely charmed by him, laughing off his various oddities as if they were intentional jokes. The pair form an easy relationship, leading to coffee dates, teachings (Denji has no educational background), and even some late-night skinny-dipping. The first half of Reze Arc, then, is played very much in typical slice-of-life fashion, journeying alongside Denji as he wrestles between choosing his newfound love or adhering to his desire to be with Makima. Ushering this all through is animation studio MAPPA, who also produced the series, and in returning to duty here, they recapture every bit of what made Chainsaw Man such a striking phenomenon to begin with, delivering yet another gorgeous and visually resplendent triumph that solidifies them as the best in the business. Every gesture, every motion, every minute detail is handled with such insistent care that it almost threatens to overwhelm. Reze Arc delivers terrific genre- and drama-filled storytelling, but it will likely go down as the most stunningly animated film of 2025 on the strength of its transcendent visual design.
And best of all: all the aforementioned narrative work arrives before the action really starts popping off. The good times don’t last forever for Denji: Reze is revealed to actually be the Bomb Devil, a deadly agent of the Gun Devil who is shockingly implacable and capable of firing off explosives in any direction, always with devastating results. The second half of Reze Arc kicks everything into high gear, sending Denji and the Public Safety Division on a wild goose chase to bring Reze’s reign of terror to an end. Reze Arc subsequently grows increasingly destructive the longer this battle wages, but director Tatsuya Yoshihara never sacrifices coherence, even amidst all the chaos. There’s a car chase, cities are leveled — at one point, the Typhoon Devil enters the fray — and we’re even treated to the awesome sight of Denji riding Beam’s humanoid shark form like a horse, jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper as he utilizes the chains from his chainsaws as reins to guide the faithful Fiend. Reze Arc ends not just with a bang, but rather with a consistent series of them, delivering an exhilarating bout of chainsaw vs. explosive mayhem that’ll satiate any fan of the franchise. Perhaps this is where a disclaimer should be entered: for those reading the above and finding themselves intrigued enough to check out Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc without any other knowledge of the series, be forewarned that the film is best enjoyed by viewers who have at least watched the first season of the anime. The film moves at a breakneck pace and relies on the viewer’s familiarity with the source to connect certain relationships in their end; otherwise, you might become lost at sea when a pugilist wearing a plague doctor mask suddenly appears in the final fight. But for the initiated, Reze Arc is all glorious sound and fury, signifying everything as the next entry of the Chainsaw Man saga lands with aplomb. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take three years before we can dig into the next installment.
DIRECTOR: Tatsuya Yoshihara; CAST: Kikunosuke Toya, Reina Ueda, Shiori Izawa, Tomori Kusunoki; DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing; IN THEATERS: October 24; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 40 min.
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