Chainsaw man: Reze

Just got back from seeing the chainsaw man movie in theatres!! If you’d like to skip the in depth review, I’ll just tell you right now that I liked it, but I have more thoughts if you want to stick around. If it wasn’t obvious, spoiler warning for Chainsaw Man - Reze Arc!!! 

I’ll set the scene for you, I’m in the theatre with my two friends, waiting for the doors to open to the theatre because we were a bit early. My friend taps my shoulder and goes “have you noticed that it’s all men?”, and slowly, horrifyingly, I turn and realize us three teenage girls are going to be trapped in a dark room with five or take 30 makima gooners. A chilling tale to get you in the mood for the October season. In the end it wasn’t bad, we sat down and minded our business and so did they. 

I’m not a hugggeeee chainsaw man fan but i definitely liked it enough to go watch the movie. I’m at a funny little crossroads because i think if the show were just a tinyyy bit different it would be like, my favorite show on the planet, but of course it isn’t. I love the power system and the design and animation, which are all top contenders for me in an anime. And also, before you give me all the ‘you just don’t understand the purpose of what it’s trying to do’ crap, trust me, I get it. Denji is a fifteen year old hormonal teenager and I don’t think he’s an awful person for being motivated by copping a feel. Hell, aren’t we all sometimes? More than that, I recognize that it’s a sad story about exploitation and sexuality is used as a tool of this and a symbol in the show. I GET IT!!! and i actually like it. When watching reze i was really reminded of what put me off the show, which is that every scene exploring this concept goes jussttttt slightly too far to make me uncomfortable. I recognize that it’s good and i honestly don’t think fujimoto is like, a freak or anything. Not in a sexual deviant kind of way. He’s kind of a weirdo in general, but in a way I respect. The point is it’s just not my cup of tea to see such continuous sexual assault scenes?? Ya know?? But I do really love the story. I think as it goes on I’m going to like it more, first season I’m pretty sure just lays it on pretty thick—and it’s not like I’ve never had to ignore fan service in an anime before.  I do think it kind of perfectly exemplifies why there are more male fans, because women are more easily put off by that kind of thing because we’re hyper aware of it. 

But before I forget: the actual plot. I really liked this movie!!! Reze is a wonderfully crafted character. Despite it all, fujimoto is very good at writing female characters. I think it’s much harder to write a female character as a bad person if you don’t want all the audience to actively hate them, fujimoto has done a great job at this. Power is one of my favorite characters and I was a little sad to see her mostly absent from this plot simply because I love her, but I was happy to find another female character who I lovedddd. Reze, lying or not, represented what’s always going to be out of reach for denji. A normal life that is literally inches away from being in reach but still, will not budge. Denji is cursed by that, he can never be a normal teenage boy again. For the first time ever, denji meets Reze and he starts to experience it. Through various hints and a final climax we find out through an assassination attempt from a frankly terrifying villain that reze is not who she says she is. Because nothing is, for denji, nothing can be that simple. 

When the bomb devil is revealed to be Reze, we essentially fall into a long fight scene. As usual, everyone thank the tireless workers locked in mappa’s basement who were forced to put their whole mapussy in that animation. I’m not sure was it is about chainsaw man that commands the attention to detail of it’s animation, but it does. Don’t get me wrong, other projects like jjk definitely have record animation, but chainsaw man is on a different level. I’m a nerd to I just like to watch them and stim out in a movie theatre which is frankly embarrassing. Everyone should be afraid for when I go to see jujutsu kaisen execution. Point being, the fight is beautiful, we’ve got some wonderful scenes worth mentioning. Most of them I won’t be mentioning because I don’t have the time or energy. Point blank I’m not even gonna talk about beam, angel devil, or even aki, all of which I have much to say about. 

The arc is named for Reze, so I’m going to stick to her. We pick up slowly that she was not entirely lying when she was with Denji, that she truly is not much different than the average 16 year old. Her chemistry with denji has not left, it makes them good fighters. There is a haunting moment in a rooftop where the sound goes completely silent, like it’s being sucked out of the room, made evident to me by the ruffling of someone’s popcorn nearby. In the silence, Reze and denji reach out, and for a second, they might have been reaching out for each other. But there they are, weapon in hand again. There’s not much of a difference to them anyway. 

In the end, Reze admits to the viewer only, she’s never been to school either. And it’s funny because she spent all this time telling denji it wasn’t normal. It’s funny because we knew from the start that denji was being teased by normality, by the so close to being in reach comfortability. It’s funny because now Reze is looking at us and telling us that she might have been in the same boat the whole time. It is funny isn’t it? They were each other’s only shot. 

No going back now, anyway. 

8/10. Would watch again! Count that last point for seeing angel devil in lingerie.