Letterboxd’s highest-rated movie of 2025 is the latest bonkers anime adaptation of the hit Japanese manga series, Chainsaw Man. The new movie, Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc, continues the storyline where the anime series last left off, showcasing Denji (Kikunosuke Toya), aka Chainsaw Man, in one of his wildest fights ever. It’s time to find out why everyone on Letterboxd is raving about this madcap anime adaptation.
‘Reze Arc’ Delivers a Canonical Adaptation
The anime movies created for the One Piece, Naruto, or My Hero Academia franchises are typically filler storylines — specifically, stories created solely for the cinematic experience, using a unique storyline that the original manga creator or artist never depicted in the source material. The great thing about Reze Arc is that it’s not a “filler” storyline. Rather, the movie adapts a canonical storyline in the original manga series created by Tatsuki Fujimoto.
Reze Arc also eschews the usual format for theatrical anime adaptations based on popular manga series; instead, Studio MAPPA adapts a major storyline from Fujimoto’s manga and brings it to life in a feature-length format. It’s great to see that anime studios are experimenting with this trend more — Ufotable took a similar route with the Demon Slayer anime series, starting with the Mugen Train movie in 2021, and more recently with the Infinity Castle feature, which was a smash hit at the global box office. For Reze Arc, it was nice to see the Chainsaw Man anime franchise return with such an impressive big-screen feature, since the first season concluded in December 2022, over two years before the movie’s release. Although it was a long wait for Reze Arc, Studio MAPPA resumed the Chainsaw Man saga in a new movie filled with glorious animated visuals and a canonical story.
‘Reze Arc’ Features a Slow Burn to Unhinged Chaos
Reze Arc starts with a slow burn as the Public Safety devil hunter Denji meets and falls in love with a girl named Reze (Reina Ueda). Reze appears outwardly nice and sweet at first, but she harbors a dark secret. Once that secret is revealed, the plot becomes wildly unhinged and chaotic, as Denji is plunged into a fight for his life, with wild devils unleashing their powers to capture them. Denji is a half-human, half-devil hybrid, empowered by his former pet, Pochita, a devil that embodies people’s fear of chainsaws. Pochita’s power allows Denji to transform into the avenging devil hunter, Chainsaw Man. However, the minions of other factions, devils and humans alike, want Denji’s power for themselves, making him a valuable target.
Once the action in Reze Arc begins, it becomes a non-stop cavalcade of insanity, such as the car chase with the Bomb Devil and the jaw-dropping fight with the Typhoon Devil. Studio MAPPA was game for the task, as the animators crafted some of their most impressive animated sequences ever throughout the movie. The extra time and money the studio was given to adapt the story into the theatrical format certainly pays off. The wait for Reze Arc was long, but the movie did not disappoint in terms of its eye candy factor.
‘Reze Arc’ Features a Bittersweet Emotional Melancholy
Despite its moments of unhinged violence, the genuine heart and emotions present throughout Reze Arc‘s narrative elevate the movie beyond mindless entertainment. Part of what makes Denji such a likable character is that despite everything he’s experienced, he’s oddly nice and naive (perhaps excessively so), and he’s merciful to a fault. There’s also Denji’s partner in the Public Safety devil hunting division, Aki Hayakawa (Shogo Sakata). Throughout the series and movie, Aki typically puts on a tough front, acting incredibly aloof and stoic. However, there’s a major moment in Reze Arc where Aki lets his mask slip, and you see through his usually cool veneer. The story reveals how Aki deeply and genuinely cares for his friends, and he becomes emotional at the loss of more of his comrades.
The narratively complex Reze also lets her mask slip at key moments in the story, proving the profundity of her relationship with Denji. For all of Chainsaw Man’s copious violence and gore, a genuine bittersweet sadness surrounding the characters grounds the narrative and adds emotional depth to the sometimes bizarre storyline. The way Fujimoto writes and depicts his characters, showcasing their emotional pathos, becomes the special sauce of Chainsaw Man. Chainsaw Man takes place in a morally ambiguous, decadent world where the main characters routinely face depressing hardships, yet they display grounded emotions, imbuing the story with fantastic emotional depth and stakes.
On that note, it’s easy to see why Chainsaw Man and its movie sequel became so beloved. The Chainsaw Man anime and the Reze Arc movie are available to stream now, subtitled and English-dubbed, on Crunchyroll in the U.S.
