Chainsaw Man and Demon Slayer are doing the exact same thing right now, but does it work?

Cinema films based on anime on the small screen have been around as long as anime itself. “Astro Boy,” widely considered the foundation of what we know today as anime, began as a television show in 1963 and was the subject of a theatrically released movie in 1964 (which compiled three episodes of the series into one feature film). Indeed, the most popular animated series ultimately give rise to one or two theatrical feature films (or more than two dozen, in the case of “Pokémon”).

These films tend to be standalone, non-canon filler stories that are completely unrelated to the ongoing narrative of the anime and are designed to be understood and enjoyed by general audiences. In reality, it’s an apology for action and fan service not normally seen in the original series. However, lately there has been a new trend that we call “animated arc film”. These films are direct adaptations of the original anime source material and often feature a story arc that would be too short for a 12-episode series. In the case of “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train,” it became one of the most successful films of 2020 and helped keep movie theaters alive during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Since then, this trend has exploded in popularity. “Demon Slayer” is currently wrapping up its story with a money-printing movie trilogy, “Haikyu!!” ends its own story with a two-part movie, “Jujutsu Kaisen” adapted a prequel comic into a feature-length tie-in to the main anime, and “Attack on Titan” essentially got a two-and-a-half hour movie split in half to air on television. (It was also released theatrically to great acclaim.) Today, 2025 brings us both the first “Demon Slayer” movie, titled “Infinity Castle,” and the “Chainsaw Man” movie “Reze Arc.” But even though these films obviously make ridiculous amounts of money, are they a good idea, from a creative point of view?

Where “Infinity Castle” is the beginning of a trilogy conclusion to the “Demon Slayer” story, “Reze Arc” adapts a smaller, older arc within the “Chainsaw Man” narrative. At the same time, both films bring a popular TV anime to the big screen in hopes of attracting new followers while satisfying established fans.

The biggest problem with these films is that they are, by their very nature, middle chapters of incomplete stories. The difference is that “Infinity Castle” picks up right after the most recent season finale of the “Demon Slayer” anime while providing little to no context. Even “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” itself a middle chapter in a larger story, featured a recap at the beginning to help viewers catch up and better understand what’s really happening (and who its various characters are).

“Reze Arc,” on the other hand, makes for a better standalone film because it adapts a full story arc — without huge repercussions for the overall plot of “Chainsaw Man” — and doesn’t deal with the larger developments of the anime’s first season. No, that doesn’t mean newcomers can just skip, because the movie absolutely assumes that you’ve not only watched the first season of the anime, but also remember its characters, their motivations, and their relationships. Nonetheless, the film devotes most of its running time to an entirely new romantic story not taken from the “Chainsaw Man” anime, meaning it offers a beginning, middle, and end regardless of whether you’ve watched the series or not. So “Reze Arc” works better as a singular film because it does what animated films are supposed to do: deliver a shorter story in a shorter duration so that it doesn’t drag on too long.

“Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” does a lot of things right. It features the sentimental romance of 2025, along with great action and a nuanced storyline that allows its main character to grow. Yet its biggest problems all stem from the fact that it’s an animated film.

For starters, in moving to the big screen and attempting to appeal to a wider audience, the “Chainsaw Man” movie sacrifices some of the visual experimentation that made the original anime so good in the first place. Likewise, he and “Infinity Castle” always adapt manga, that is, stories published episodically. This translates better to the television medium, but when these stories are packaged into one feature-length film, their pacing suffers and the films themselves still feel like they’re firmly divided into chapters. You can clearly see where the ad breaks would go and where the end credits of the episode would fit into “Infinity Castle” – and given that “Mugen Train” was ultimately made back into a TV series, it’s likely that “Infinity Castle” will end up becoming a season of television anyway, which somewhat defeats the purpose.

Unfortunately, the genie is already out of the bottle and there is no longer any way to stop this trend. Movies like “Infinity Castle” simply make too much money to ignore and do too good a job of encouraging fans to watch them in theaters as quickly as possible. However, these are not spin-offs or reboots designed to reduce their source material to its essence in order to achieve mass appeal; they are continuations of the stories fans already follow every week on television. Sacrificing that only takes away from what makes television and movies both unique and different.