At first glance, “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc”, the cinema continuation of the “Chainsaw Man” franchise, which has already been successful as a manga and anime series, is reminiscent of the recently super-successful “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle”. Ultimately, the exalted, exuberant images speak for one of those typically Japanese animated adventures in which the battle between good and evil is fought out with fantastic creatures and monsters.
But then the film, directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara, begins surprisingly slowly. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” actually feels more like a high school romance at first, before it develops into a gigantic action excess that easily puts even the sprawling battles from Michael Bay’s “Transformers” series in the shade. But with one central difference: In the end, it's not about the survival of humanity, but actually “just” about conquering a teenager's heart.
Once he transforms into the titular Chainsaw Man, Denji suddenly has chainsaws instead of his hands and head.
After the big final fight that ended the first TV season of “Chainsaw Man,” the protagonist Denji wakes up exhausted in his apartment, which he shares with other devil hunters. Since an incident with the mafia, the 16-year-old teenager has sometimes transformed into the eponymous Chainsaw Man – a devilish creature who has chainsaws instead of his head and hands. Sometimes Denji doesn't feel like a real person anymore because of this, but after a movie date with his boss Makima, he's at least happy to see that he obviously still has a heart.
And it is precisely this heart that is the target of the hybrid demon Reze: He appears in human form as a good student, who soon transforms into a creature that is both provocative and bloodthirsty. As such, Reze throws himself into the fight for Denji's heart – regardless of whether half of Tokyo is flattened if necessary…
Absolute action overkill
“Could you plant mold in her brain,” is a question in “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc,” after a diabolical creature blows its own head off with seemingly suicidal intent, only to come back to life despite everything and decapitate its two attackers instead. Shortly afterwards, however, the reborn devil creature is pursued by the Chainsaw Man, who rides on a kind of flying shark and who cannot be stopped even by a gigantic typhoon and its path of destruction. Yes, it's not always easy to follow the twists and turns of “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc”. Especially since the absurd collection of figures ranges from a suicidal angel to a shark in human form to a friendly monster with a medieval plague mask.
For all the visual excess and diverse staff, however, it becomes increasingly clear that, at its core, this is about nothing more than the heart of Denji. He was once a “normal” teenager who, through circumstances, became one of the monsters he was supposed to fight as a devil hunter. Although he has decided to still stand up for the good side, his existence as a kind of hybrid creature who mostly roams the streets as the teenage Denji and then fights evil again as Chainsaw Man makes him doubt his humanity. There are now two girls who convince him that he actually has a heart and between whom he has to choose. A wet dream for the (male) anime audience, of course, but also for Denji himself, in whose imagination some Lolita-like dream sequences are put together.
The only true “pet” for the Chainsaw Man: a flying shark with six eyes!
The (anti-)hero's raunchy fantasy proves to be an ambivalent viewing experience, even if later, when Reze sheds her schoolgirl facade, she transforms into a scantily clad, deeply cleavage creature that wouldn't have looked out of place even in revealing heavy metal comics from the 1970s. But the fact that it was Denji's infatuation that Reze took advantage of for her dark plans gives “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” an amazing down-to-earth quality despite all the excess.
Because even if almost the entire second half of the film is spent on increasingly exalted action excess, which drifts into increasingly detached images that hit the retina so quickly that they can be perceived instinctively rather than consciously: In the end, in contrast to what feels like every other MCU or DC film, it is not the entire humanity or the entire universe that is at stake, but nothing more and nothing less than that Emotional world of a teenager.
Conclusion: Even if you don't know the first season of the anime series, the cinema version “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is great fun – because despite the gigantic images including chainsaw carnage that always take your breath away, at its core it's about very down-to-earth things, namely the heart of a teenager, which is in danger here in two ways.