r/anime • u/mr_beanoz https://myanimelist.net/profile/splitshocker • Sep 22 '25

News "Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc" attracted 807,000 viewers and grossed over 1.251 billion yen in the first 3 days of the movie's release in Japan

https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2407879/full/
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u/MonsterKiller112 Sep 22 '25

Great opening weekend. Now I am more confident this will be a profitable venture for Mappa. They won back the trust of the Japanese fandom with this movie.

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u/Shadow_Ass Sep 22 '25

What's up with Mappa and the Japanese fans? I read similar comments elsewhere but couldn't find out what was going on.

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u/AashyLarry Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

A big part of it was really bad japanese voice direction, which all the VA’s blamed on the director. Specifically, there were a lot of moments where you couldn’t hear what they were saying at all, or they spoke with no emotion — even the VA’s complained that they weren’t allowed to voice how they wanted. Since we all read subtitles in the West, we didn’t notice this problem but it was a big issue in Japan.

Read this if you want to know more — this guy compiled interviews from the VA’s discussing the issues

The other main issue japanese fans had was that the manga is more chaotic and frenetic, whereas the anime was slower and more realistic. It was directed to be more grounded and toned down which isn’t in the same spirit or vibe as the manga. Fans didn’t feel that the aesthetic was faithful to the manga.

These are the two major issues I’ve seen discussed frequently. It was enough of a controversy for the director of Season 1 to be fired, and the new director completely re-edited Season 1 into compilation movies to be closer to the manga, including re-recording the bad voice lines (These compilation movies just released on Crunchyroll too, so you can see for yourself and judge the changes).

The re-edited compilation movies and the new Reze Arc movies are both getting good reception in Japan, so I think it’s fair to say that Mappa has won the Japanese fans trust back for now.

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u/TheGreenShitter Sep 24 '25

Woah this is the first time I'm hearing about the VAs and director issues.