“Chainsaw Man—The Movie: Reze Arc” (2025), produced by Japanese anime Studio MAPPA, exploded into North American theaters last Thursday after several years of anticipation. The film adapts one of the most emotionally charged story arcs from Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga of the same name.
The film brings to life a story of violence, love, manipulation, and the yearning for a “normal” life in a world that guarantees anything but that. But beyond its appeal to fans, this film signals something larger: a chance to reconsider how viewers think about animation itself.
If animation is capable of portraying raw humanity with the same nuance as some widely-regarded masterpieces, why do we still treat it like a “genre” reserved for kids?
The Film: Reze Arc
In the world of “Chainsaw Man,” devils are given physical forms born of human fears. The main character, Denji — a teenager who spent his childhood working off his deceased father’s debt to the yakuza — merges with his pet Chainsaw Devil, Pochita, and becomes the titular “Chainsaw Man,” joining Japan’s Public Safety Devil Hunters.
After the numerous traumatic events of the first season, “Reze Arc” finds Denji entangled with Reze, a mysterious girl his own age, whose warmth seems to offer him an escape from his violent life. Both characters, stripped of ordinary childhoods, yearn for the normalcy of school, freedom, and first love—things neither ever got to experience. Yet, beneath the quiet tenderness lies something darker, as Denji finds himself falling even further into the surreal world he has been trapped in.
The film is more than its gorgeous visual spectacle. It explores the cost of being instrumentalized, how those who have gone through hell can find comfort in one another, and how the promise of love can coexist with manipulation. It is about the yearning for a life untouched by violence, and the tragedy of realizing that innocence may be irretrievable. The film’s treatment of Reze and Denji’s relationship reveals this story’s greatest strength: its empathy for broken people and its unflinching portrayal of how systems exploit them.
One might argue that if this film had been shot live-action (though it certainly would not have worked as well), critics might hail it as a searing, layered psychological drama. But because it is animated, it and works like it are often confined to a separate category of “animation” (or even just “anime”), a label that in Hollywood discourse still carries the assumption of immaturity or niche appeal.
The Growing Success of Animated Works
That assumption is collapsing fast. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” opened at number 1 at the North American box office, earning more than $18 million in its opening weekend, beating out widely marketed films such as “Regretting You,” “Black Phone 2,” and “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.”
This surge of success of animated works comes amid a broader renaissance for animated cinema in East Asia. In 2020, the anime film “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” (2020) became the highest-grossing film worldwide, beating out every live-action competitor during the pandemic year. This year, China’s “Ne Zha 2” quickly became the highest-grossing film of the year globally, and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time.
These milestones may just sound like commercial trivia, but they show that audiences worldwide actually crave the scale, artistry, and emotional power animation delivers when treated seriously. And yet, Western award bodies and major studios have been slower to acknowledge this shift. Critics can praise movies like the Spider-Man “Spider-Verse” series for their innovation while overlooking the previously animated works that inspire them.
Overall, animation is too often siloed into a single category, treated as an immature “genre” rather than the medium it truly is. As renowned filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro said, “Animation is a medium, not a genre- nor an interest for kids & families only.”
Where Is the Recognition?
Despite this, there have been glimmers of change in recent times. Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” (2001) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003, and his latest film, “The Boy and the Heron” (2023), took the same honor two decades later, a symbolic full circle for Studio Ghibli and for global animation. But recognition remains fragmented, and animated films continue to be judged against a live-action standard they were never meant to emulate.
What is often forgotten is just how profoundly animation has influenced Western cinema. The now-iconic “Akira slide,” a visual shorthand first seen in Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira” (1988), has appeared in countless Western works now considered action classics.
Darren Aronofsky has openly cited Satoshi Kon’s “Perfect Blue” (1997) as an influence on “Black Swan” (2010) and several of his other films, while many have claimed that Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” (2010) shows clear parallels that may have been drawn from Kon’s “Paprika” (2006).
This pattern reflects a broader problem: animation is celebrated only when it transcends its own medium. But why must it? Films like “Reze Arc” prove that animation does not need to “become” something else to matter. It already is cinema, just told through a different language, which should be allowed to become a part of the broader cinematic conversation.
Looking Forward
As more audiences embrace works like “Chainsaw Man,” the lines are beginning to blur. The conversation is shifting from “Can animation be serious?” to “Why did we ever think it could not?”
Perhaps that is “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc’s” quietest victory. Beneath the blood and heartbreak lies a deeply human story, one that proves animation is a medium of art like any other, capable of expressing the same emotional density as any great film. It represents a growing awareness that animation can even capture the human condition in ways live-action cannot.
Even though its theatrical run will fade, the discussion it sparks should not. Because every time a film like this breaks through, it brings us closer to seeing animation not as “other,” but as what it has always been: art.
And perhaps, someday soon, the rest of the industry will finally see it that way too.