Denji has a problem. He loves two girls. The first is Makima. She likes going to the cinema, seeing five movies with Denji in a single day. The trouble is that Denji doesn’t laugh, doesn’t cry, doesn’t evoke emotion of any kind during the films he watches.

It might be because he’s a “hybrid,” a being whose soul has fused with the Chainsaw Devil. Eventually, Makima tires of Denji’s horny advances. It turns out Chainsaw Devil-hybrid boys only want one thing and it’s fucking disgusting. Luckily, there’s another girl in Denji’s life, the sweet-natured Reze, who likes Denji for who he is (whatever he is). Or so Denji thinks. Because Reze is really the Bomb Devil, a malevolent hybrid who wants to kill Denji and steal his Chainsaw Devil heart. It’s a story as old as time.

So needless to say, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc – directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara, and written by Hiroshi Seko – is completely bewildering for anyone not familiar with both the first series of the television show (to which Reze Arc is a direct sequel), or the storytelling conventions of (I’m reliably informed) “shonen manga.” This ignorant crowd includes me. Sure, I’ve seen the crossover anime classics. I was awed by Akira, thrilled and appalled by Ninja Scroll, and like all university students, I was serious and philosophical about Perfect Blue. And I’m not sure if the Studio Ghibli films count, but I better throw them in there. I need it.

But compared to the cosplay audience attending the premiere – dressed in pink wigs, knee-high socks and skinny ties – I’m ill-equipped to critique the film’s blend of cutesy, adolescent melodrama and cartoonish mega-violence. What was clear to me is that I’m Team Makima. She’s a better fit for Denji than Reze, who, for the last 45 minutes of the movie, just explodes over and over again, killing hundreds of people and levelling half of Tokyo. Denji, luckily, is given able support by the Public Safety Division 2, a governmental group of teenage Devil Hunters. Oh, and Denji’s loyal friend “Beam” – a fanatical talking shark– who Denji rides over land like a giant cockroach. There’s a reference to the Soviet Union. I’m in way over my head.

As a cinematic experience, the Chainsaw Man movie is not inclusive. It begins without exposition, it proceeds without explanation, it ends without warning. Most of its scenes could be rearranged in order without eliciting any more, or less, human emotion from me (perhaps I, too, have a Chainsaw Devil heart?). But that’s ok, it’s not for me. At the end of its exhausting 100-minute runtime, I was glad to go back to my humdrum world of regular non-exploding humans living out normal non-Chainsaw lives.

 

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc is currently playing in cinemas.