Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

Note: This review contains spoilers for Chainsaw Man Season 1.

The overwhelming success of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train appears to have started a trend, in which some anime adaptations adapt an arc from the source material as a feature film. Such was the case with 2024’s Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom, as well as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (Infinity Castle) earlier this year, and this trend continues with Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc (Reze Arc) (JP: Gekijō-ban Chensō Man Reze-hen), which takes place after Season 1 of the Chainsaw Man anime. Since I became a fan of Chainsaw Man through said anime, I was excited for Reze Arc after learning of its canon status, but the two-year gap since the ending of the first season led to me rewatching it again shortly before my appointed screening to get a reminder on what happened. After managing to catch a dubbed screening, I felt Reze Arc was worth the wait.

Look Back

While the mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto is perhaps best known for his series Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch, he has also had a number of one-shots under his belt. One such one-shot is Look Back from 2021, which explores the passion behind the art process and creating manga. After reading the manga, I learned that there was an anime film adaptation in 2024 released through Amazon Prime Video, and so decided to watch it while the story was still fresh in my mind. The film not only does an excellent job of adapting the manga’s story, it even has its own small touches that add to it in an effective way.