I’m sure a good portion of you know a lot more about Chainsaw Man: the Movie: Reze Arc than I did tonight going into the theater (my knowledge being: exactly one (1) trailer).

It is a continuation of a show I haven’t seen, based on a manga I haven’t read; but seeing it with no context at all, I didn’t feel lost.

The animation is incredible. Details like hand anatomy and gestures. Shoulder musculature. Body language. Everything felt like attention was paid, and artistic taste applied.

The fight sequences were not boring – and that’s a shocker to me, because the movie is mostly fight scenes. But with a sweet teenage romance angle present from the beginning, and humor throughout, I actually cared about the characters and enjoyed the weirdness a lot.

And my god — the effects animation!!! So many explosions, so well animated and so varied. They never got too repetitive.

There were definitely things other theater-goers were catching that flew over my head, and I’m happy that there’s a whole show to look forward to watching. But it isn’t necessary to be familiar before going to see this film; watching it just for the beauty and prowess of the animation and art direction yields plenty of excitement and inspiration.

It does, in the end, feel like a long and extremely high-production-value episode of something bigger. I hope the rest of it is as fun as this movie was!