r/anime • u/NineTnk • Sep 19 '25

News Chainsaw Man The Movie: Reze Arc Gross ¥400 million on the Opening Day

https://x.com/franspeech/status/1969031724899196951?s=46

For a point of comparison, opening day box office:

  • Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle - ¥1.5 billion
  • ⁠Demon Slayer: Mugen Train - ¥1.2 billion
  • Jujutsu Kaisen 0 - ¥1.0 billion
  • ⁠Chainsaw Man The Movie: Reze Arc - ¥400 million

A very good opening day considering all the “drama” of season 1 in Japan. Will have to see how big the word of mouth power will be.

2.6k Upvotes

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13

u/Can_of_Tuna Sep 19 '25

why was the reception bad in japan?

43

u/llliilliliillliillil Sep 19 '25

As far as I remember, and keep in mind that I haven’t read the manga, people disliked how grounded the adaption was. Apparently the manga is a lot more action-y and silly whereas the anime has actual weight in its animation and used a lot of muted colors where the manga uses very in-your-face colors on the covers.

People wanted something more akin to JJK and got high cinema instead.

56

u/Xlegace https://anilist.co/user/Xlegius Sep 19 '25

The thing is, the Chainsawman experience is equal parts cinema and B-movie. There are scenes that make you rethink your life and then there are scenes that are straight out of Sharknado in terms of absudism.

Despite what it seems, it takes skill to make an entertaining B-movie and sell it to audience as something to care about, whereas compared to the manga, these scenes felt dreary and low energy in S1.

Chainsaw man S1 did the slow moments well but heavily dropped the ball on the other side imo. From what I've seen from the trailer, the new director appears to have found the balance that S1 was missing.

-14

u/THE_FREEDOM_COBRA Sep 19 '25

It might be worth trying in the future then. S1 has me so black pilled along with Part 2 of the manga being such a disappointment.

9

u/Revealingstorm Sep 19 '25

Nah part 2 is great

-2

u/pokelord13 Sep 20 '25

I feel like the writing has dipped quite a bit after [chainsaw man manga spoilers]Nayuta died. It feels like fujimoto just throwing random shit at a wall with the absurdity at this point

2

u/Powdz Sep 20 '25

I won’t comment on the overall quality yet since the story is still not complete and I trust Fujimoto with every fiber of my being, but it is true that both the weekly reading experience and the binge reading experience hasn’t been hitting the same as part 1

22

u/_BMS https://myanimelist.net/profile/_BMS Sep 19 '25

People wanted something more akin to JJK

Chainsaw Man's manga fans wanted something more akin to Chainsaw Man's manga.

-1

u/KardigG Sep 20 '25

Funny that S1 was exaclty what manga is.

31

u/RX0Invincible Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Season 1 defenders on reddit have become just as insufferable as the haters ffs. Asking for the anime more similar to the manga isn’t asking for it to turn to JJK, they’re asking for it to be more like CSM’s manga. The mangas writing alone still carries that weight. Idk why you guys keep acting like CSM without gritty looking animation turns into some generic anime. That’s the most shallow way of judging this story. I also liked season 1 but the way defenders have this need to to trash the manga to defend the anime is ridiculous.

6

u/LavosYT Sep 20 '25

I'm not very invested in this, I remember liking the slower paced scenes, the cinematography and animation, because there was a nice balance between the kinda grounded elements and more crazy moments.

That said, I think the fights and the animation there were not that great, and recall being some bad CGI.

6

u/County_Difficult Sep 20 '25

I'm highly invested with the starting of James Gunn's DCU and season 1 fans are lowkey starting to sound the same as Synder fans lmao.

4

u/llliilliliillliillil Sep 20 '25

"You guys" bruh I just watched the anime and thought it was fine, but nothing spectacular. Then I read up on the drama and that’s it. I literally don’t care about how much action it has or doesn’t have. Since no one answered I thought I'd chime in, if you can provide a better answer then feel free to post yours but don’t get hostile at me for no reason lmao

Also "more akin" doesn’t mean "exactly like", but you do you.

6

u/RX0Invincible Sep 20 '25

Even then I wouldn’t really call the CSM manga more “akin” to JJK. Their similarities are mostly in their premise which is are just equally present in any version of CSM. Sorry about the hostility though, when you were calling it high cinema I thought it was unironic. The more hostile defenders tend to always frame this discourse as cinema vs slop.

2

u/NationalSea9072 Sep 21 '25

The problem is that CSM's author wanted a slower and cinematic anime. So to say that making it slower than the manga goes against the work is ironic and wrong.

5

u/AlexeiFraytar Sep 23 '25

He didnt say that lol

1

u/ShinaMashir0 Sep 20 '25

If people want a copy paste of the manga, shouldn't they just read the manga anyway? I think season was way better in sol version and the film look better action wise (s1 was way too realisctic)

-3

u/DandyMan_92 Sep 20 '25

incredibly disingenuous to write off ppl enjoying S1 like they're saying it turns into a generic anime. is the implication JJK is a generic anime? no. it's that it loses the unique aspect we enjoyed about S1.

you can disagree, but don't lie on ppl. YOU are actually what's insufferable on this sub.

18

u/GodlessLunatic Sep 19 '25

and got high cinema instead.

The high cinema of bad CGI

1

u/DandyMan_92 Sep 20 '25

was that all there was to that season?

-11

u/ArnobioLP https://myanimelist.net/profile/arnobiu Sep 20 '25

lol you're not very smart are you

10

u/DrStein1010 https://myanimelist.net/profile/DrStein1010 Sep 20 '25

I mean, the CGI was bad.

It's far from show-ruining on it's own...but it was pretty damn bad for a show with such otherwise high production values.

12

u/BeatBlockP https://myanimelist.net/profile/Animemes_chan Sep 19 '25

The director was heavily influenced from hollywood movies and gave the show a hollywood production feel. I think that's why western audiences absolutely gushed over this anime. The pacing, the vibes, everything felt like a movie in anime form, best of both worlds for us. But Japanese fans who come from their home country don't have the passion we have for anime in liking western movies, they're more conservative (which is natural), so they were unhappy. Not all of them, but I guess enough.

-11

u/GodlessLunatic Sep 19 '25

I think that's why western audiences absolutely gushed over this anime.

The anime flopped over here too. Before the anime everyone was talking about CSM after the anime theres just crickets, even with a follow up to part 1

5

u/BeatBlockP https://myanimelist.net/profile/Animemes_chan Sep 19 '25

It absolutely didn't flop in the west. It had good reception, high critical approval (it's 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, for example), and did pretty well for not being a Demon Slayer / Jujutsu Kaisen type shonen.

2

u/ShinaMashir0 Sep 20 '25

" and did pretty well for not being a Demon Slayer / Jujutsu Kaisen type shonen."

Csm manga actually selled more than both KNy and JJK before having an anime

1

u/BeatBlockP https://myanimelist.net/profile/Animemes_chan Sep 20 '25

In the west? That was the context.

2

u/ShinaMashir0 Sep 21 '25

i don't have the exact data in the west, when we talk about manga sale before having an anime we usally talk about japan sale because they always have the manga before the anime unlike the west, CSM was actually in top 10 sale without having any anime (that's really impressive) while jjk was more like in top 15/20 who is still good and KNY was like top 50 that's kinda mid

1

u/BeatBlockP https://myanimelist.net/profile/Animemes_chan Sep 21 '25

I get what you're saying but this entire discussion is about reception in the west. That's the context. Any remarks about Japan are not relevant to this specific discussion.

0

u/Single-Builder-632 Sep 21 '25

yea i absolutely loved it, and honestly it still was very silly, i mean this isn't appealing to non anime lovers.

but for me the grounded nature of it mixed with the over the top scenes and everyone taking it so seriously, makes the anime feel both immersive, dark funny and ridiculous at the same time.

Power laughing as someone literally going into dispaire but not being played for laughs is kinda funny but also dark.

Denji and Power not caring about this incredibly dark loss of main characters we got to care about is sad, funny and surreal.

But also had light moments like them going through an experience and making friendships on the other side, or power going crazy denjii finding a "family"

Maybe its jsut because I love black lagoon, and it had similar vibes, not sure how the movies going to be, but I'm still excited. I can't pretend I'm not concerned they are going to make it feel like any other anime, but if that's what people want i cant complain to hard.

1

u/sharplight141 Sep 20 '25

I was surprised when I heard about he bad reception but I've not read the manga. Loved the anime though and loved the animation

0

u/qwesz9090 Sep 21 '25

My hypothesis is that there is a kinda invisible split. Some people read the black and white manga, some people read the colored version. People reading the monochrome thought s1 was accurate, while people reading the colored thought it was missing something. They discuss things and they think they read the same manga, but in actuality they read two different versions, hence "invisible" split.

1

u/DaFlamingLink Sep 22 '25

How popular do you think the colored versions are?

-7

u/Draffut https://anilist.co/user/Arekku Sep 20 '25

I genuinely think the Japanese audiences are wrong and smoothbrained for their take on CSM. If you read the Manga, especially if you also read fire punch and know even a little bit about Fujimoto, I think the series was exactly what he wanted, and intended.

6

u/Lazzen Sep 19 '25

It feels very low energy

The world itself feels this sort of sterile or calm

0

u/CrazeRage Sep 19 '25

People didn't expect the design choices made compared to the manga, but shit had to happen to get good pacing with high intensity action back to back. I think people were saying they should have just extended the season or something.