Tatsuya Yoshihara’s artfully drawn movie “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on a story line (or arc) from Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga. The animated film plays out the meet-cute and then confrontation between Denji, a naïve youth employed by a demon-hunter agency, and Reze, a beautiful stranger who turns out to be a devil in disguise. It’s part moony romance, part ultraviolent battle royale.
Trailing a beleaguering back story of family debts, yakuza betrayal and revival by a devil-dog, Denji is a jagged-toothed young man able to transform into a supercharged fighter with chain saws in his arms and head. Recounting the character biographies in anime can feel vaguely crazy-making, but to boil it down another way: He’s an emotionally vulnerable man-child who knows only his duties and humble apartment, and lapses into internal monologues when sorting out his reactions to women.
So while “Chainsaw Man” becomes a mighty struggle between superhero forces, it’s also a psychological mapping of trust, breakdown and chaotic release. Denji’s prim boss, Makima, pairs him with a wild-card partner named Beam (a.k.a. the Shark Devil), and then invites him on a bewildering day of serial moviegoing. But Denji immediately plunges into confusion when he falls for the lithe, pixieish Reze after they meet in the rain and hang out at the cafe where she works.
Shown with a subdued color palette and gentle lines, the film’s dawdling first half shifts gears when Reze takes Denji to a school building at night on a mystery date, complete with an atmospheric swim in the pool. An assassin arrives, targeting Reze, and the film catapults the characters into the brutal terrain of kill-or-be-killed. Soon Reze is revealed to be the Bomb Devil — a chilling, snazzily garbed being who can cause explosions and even detonate herself with the pull of a pin.
As Denji and his adversaries converge on and above city streets, it’s possible to enjoy the combat on the level of pure sensation. Here, the rapturous ability of anime to isolate and prolong movement and emotion within a frame is on full display. Reze, Denji and other participants like the Typhoon Devil hurtle through a shivery airspace over Tokyo that explodes into streaks of fire and blood, often to a throbbing soundtrack.
The central Denji-Reze conflict is the easiest to follow for those unfamiliar with the original source material. But a supporting plot strand around two suit-and-tied devil hunters in the story, Aki and the winged Angel, could be better developed within the film, and the same goes for the sparse but pivotal appearances by the mercurial, horned character of Power.
Denji’s life comes back down to earth with a gentle conclusion about his feelings of romantic betrayal, but it’s hard not to feel limited by the character’s somewhat stunted psychology. After the film’s thunderous adventures, the character that some of us might identify with most is a civilian seen cowering and whimpering on a ruined street.
Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc
Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and some nudity. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.
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