Chainsaw Man: The Reze Arc Movie - Where to Watch and the Ending, Explained
The Reze Arc is the part of Chainsaw Man that fans had been begging MAPPA to animate since the TV anime ended, and the movie did not disappoint. Critics loved it, audiences turned out for it, and now the obvious question is the practical one: where do you actually watch it, and what just happened at the end?
Good news on both fronts. As of June 2026 the film is finally easy to stream, and the ending, while brutal, is not as confusing as it first feels. Here is the full guide.
Quick answer: where to watch the Reze Arc movie
If you just want the short version, here it is.
The headline answer is Crunchyroll. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc started streaming there on April 30, 2026, in both subbed and dubbed versions, as part of Crunchyroll's Ani-May lineup. It is included with a subscription, so if you already pay for Crunchyroll you can watch it right now at no extra cost.
If you would rather own it (or you do not have Crunchyroll), the film has also been available to buy or rent on digital storefronts since December 9, 2025, months before it hit subscription streaming. That includes Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google TV, and Fandango at Home, in both sub and dub.
| Where | How | Available since | Sub / Dub |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crunchyroll | Subscription (included) | April 30, 2026 | Both |
| Amazon Prime Video | Buy or rent | December 9, 2025 | Both |
| Apple TV | Buy or rent | December 9, 2025 | Both |
| Google TV / Fandango at Home | Buy or rent | December 9, 2025 | Both |
Two caveats worth knowing. First, the Crunchyroll release is worldwide except France and Japan, France because Crunchyroll does not hold the French rights, and Japan because the Japanese theatrical and home-video windows are handled separately. That carve-out is standard for Crunchyroll's Sony-distributed films, so it should not surprise anyone who watched the theatrical run. Second, there is no confirmed Netflix listing or free ad-supported tier as of June 2026. Crunchyroll movies are typically gated behind a paid plan, so treat any "watch it free" claim you stumble across with suspicion.
So the practical recommendation: if you have Crunchyroll, open it and press play. If you do not, renting it on Prime Video or Apple TV is the cheapest way to see it once.
What the Reze Arc movie actually is
Quick refresher for anyone who came in cold. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc is the first feature-length film in MAPPA's Chainsaw Man series, a direct continuation of the TV anime that aired in 2022. It is not a recap movie and it is not filler. It adapts a full, beloved chunk of Tatsuki Fujimoto's manga that the first season stopped just short of.
Here are the specifics:
- Studio: MAPPA
- Director: Tatsuya Yoshihara, who served as action director on the TV anime
- Screenplay: Hiroshi Seko
- Music: Kensuke Ushio
- Runtime: roughly 100 minutes (about 1 hour 40 minutes)
- Source material: the Reze Arc, also called the "Bomb Girl" arc, manga chapters 39 through 52 (volumes 5 and 6)
- Theme songs: opening "IRIS OUT" by Kenshi Yonezu, ending "JANE DOE" by Kenshi Yonezu and Hikaru Utada
That last bullet is not a throwaway detail. Getting Kenshi Yonezu on the opening and pairing him with Hikaru Utada on the ending is the kind of music budget you put behind a movie you expect to be a cultural event, and the soundtrack pulls real weight in the film's quieter scenes.
If you watched season 1 and stopped there, this is exactly where the story picks up. You do not need to read anything in between. The movie covers chapters 39 to 52 in their entirety, so it is a clean continuation.
Is it any good? The reception
Short version: yes, and it is not close.
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc holds a 96% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating north of 8 out of 10 across dozens of reviews. Metacritic lands it at "generally favorable," and audiences who saw it theatrically handed it a CinemaScore of A. One critic went as far as calling it "the best rom-com of 2025," which sounds absurd until you understand what the Reze Arc actually is underneath the explosions.
The box office backs up the critical praise. The film won its US opening weekend across roughly 3,000 theaters, beating expectations, and went on to become one of the highest-grossing Japanese films of all time. MAPPA had a strong 2025, and this was the studio's biggest earner of the year, landing it in the same conversation as Jujutsu Kaisen 0 as one of MAPPA's top theatrical performers. We are deliberately not pinning a single exact worldwide figure here, because the reported totals drifted as the run continued and sources do not fully agree, but the order of magnitude is clear: this was a hit, not a niche release.
For a film adapting a 14-chapter manga arc, that is a remarkable result. It tells you the Reze Arc connected with people who had never read a page of the manga.
The theatrical and streaming timeline
If you have lost track of when this thing released where, you are not alone. The rollout was unusually drawn out. Here is the full timeline so the streaming date makes sense in context.
- September 19, 2025, Japanese theatrical premiere, distributed by Toho.
- October 24, 2025, US and international theatrical release via Sony Pictures Releasing (the date was actually moved up a few days from an originally announced late-October slot).
- December 9, 2025, digital purchase and rental release in the US through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, on Prime Video, Apple TV, and other storefronts.
- April 30, 2026, Crunchyroll subscription streaming begins worldwide, excluding France and Japan, in both sub and dub.
That roughly seven-month gap between theaters and subscription streaming is normal for a Sony-distributed anime film. The studio monetizes the theatrical and buy-to-own windows first, then the title lands on Crunchyroll once those have run their course. So if you were waiting for the "free with my subscription" moment, that moment is now.
The ending, explained (spoilers ahead)
Spoiler warning. Everything below this line discusses the ending of the movie and the Reze Arc in full. If you have not seen it yet, scroll down to the recommendations section and come back later.
The Reze Arc looks like a sudden romance and plays out like a tragedy. That tension is the whole point, so let us walk through it.
Who Reze is
Denji meets Reze at a cafe during a rainstorm, and for a stretch the movie genuinely feels like a sweet, awkward romance about a lonely kid finally getting the normal life he keeps saying he wants. Reze is warm, forward, and seems to actually like him. For Denji, who measures his entire existence in the smallest scraps of affection, this is everything.
It is also a setup. Reze is the Bomb Devil hybrid, a trained operative sent to capture the Chainsaw Devil's heart, which lives inside Denji. The cafe, the flirting, the late-night swim, all of it was a job. When she drops the act, the movie pivots from romance to one of the most spectacular action set pieces MAPPA has ever animated.
The fight and the false reprieve
The back half is a brutal, escalating battle. Reze, the Typhoon Devil, and the forces of Public Safety all collide, and Denji takes a beating before turning the tide. He defeats the Typhoon Devil and drags Reze into the sea, and here is the part that hurts in hindsight: he spares her. He does not kill her. The two of them, exhausted, reach a kind of truce, and they agree to meet again at the cafe where it started. Reze, for once, seems to genuinely consider walking away from her handlers and choosing Denji's quiet ordinary life over the mission.
That is the false reprieve. The movie lets you believe, for a few minutes, that this might end with the two of them getting coffee.
What actually happens to Reze
It does not. On her way to meet Denji, Reze is intercepted and killed by Makima, with the help of the Angel Devil, before she ever reaches the cafe. Makima does not do this out of cruelty for its own sake, she does it because Reze had become a genuine threat to her control over Chainsaw Man, and Makima eliminates anything that might pull Denji out of her orbit.
The final scene is the gut punch. Denji waits at the cafe for Reze, who never comes. He does not learn what happened to her. He does not get an explanation, a body, or closure. He just sits there, and eventually accepts that she is not coming, the same way he accepts most of the cruelty in his life: quietly, and alone. The audience knows exactly what happened. Denji never finds out. That asymmetry is what makes the ending land as hard as it does.
One technical caveat that comes up in discussion: Reze is a Devil hybrid, and in the world of Chainsaw Man that makes a death technically ambiguous in a way a human's would not be. But within the arc itself, she is gone, and the story treats her as gone. Do not expect a surprise return.
Why the ending works
The Reze Arc is Chainsaw Man in miniature. Denji is offered the one thing he has wanted his entire life, to be loved, to have something normal and his own, and the story takes it away in the most matter-of-fact way possible. There is no villain monologue, no dramatic deathbed scene he gets to witness. The person he was falling for simply does not show up, and he never gets to know why.
That is the thesis of the whole series stated in 100 minutes: Denji keeps reaching for a normal life, and the world keeps quietly refusing to let him have it. The "best rom-com of 2025" framing is half a joke and half completely accurate, because it really is a love story, just one where the genre itself is the trap.
What to read or watch next
If the movie left you wanting more, and it should have, here is where to go.
Continuing the manga. The movie covers chapters 39 to 52. To pick up exactly where it leaves off, start reading from chapter 53, the beginning of the next arc, collected in Volume 7. The manga keeps escalating from here, and the fallout from the Reze Arc directly fuels everything that follows in the Public Safety saga. If you have only watched the anime up to this point, this is the natural jumping-on point for the page.
Rewatching the lead-up. If it has been a while, the Chainsaw Man TV anime is worth a revisit before or after the film. The movie assumes you remember who Makima is and what she means to Denji, and the ending hits harder when that relationship is fresh in your mind.
More MAPPA at the movies. If the film's craft is what grabbed you, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is the other MAPPA theatrical release in the same tier, and the Jujutsu Kaisen TV series shares a lot of the same brutal, high-budget action sensibility.
More of this exact flavor. If what you loved was the mix of grime, violence, and unexpected emotional weight, point yourself at Dan Da Dan, which pairs supernatural chaos with a surprisingly tender core, or browse the action and supernatural hubs for more in the same vein.
The bottom line
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc is the rare adaptation that fully justifies its hype. It is on Crunchyroll right now with a subscription (outside France and Japan), and available to buy or rent on the major digital storefronts if you would rather not subscribe. The reviews are excellent, the action is some of MAPPA's best, and the ending earns every bit of the heartbreak it delivers.
If you want to track where you are in the Chainsaw Man story, line up what to read after the movie, or just find your next gut-punch of a watch, you can do all of it on MyAnimePulse. Add the Reze Arc movie to your list, mark it watched, and let the recommendations take it from there.