The Medium?

Reze Arc.

Fuck it was good.

For those who haven’t seen Chainsaw Man, I apologize to be serving you content that’s probably not very relatable… though I’m not really here to talk about the show, film, or IP. More just about the weird reason I think I loved it more than the show.

The visuals are absolutely spectacular but so is the show. The soundtrack is total Metal Gear Rising levels of hysterical edge but so is the show. The variety in tone is shocking yet never feels incoherent, but so is the show. The Dub is one of the best ever recorded…

But so is the show.

I’d be lying if I said why was a mystery though. I actually think I knew within half an hour and realized I was enjoying more than twenty minutes of Chainsaw Man’s unique quality without having to cue up a following episode. I just kicked back in a lazy chair laughing at the same time everybody else did when Reze called Denji a genius for solving the world’s toughest math problem.

There’s a few sequences that perhaps are given a little more time to breathe than in the show, but by in-large, the events seem to be presented in an almost identical manner due to following a manga and being made by presumably the same team at Mappa.

My enjoyment is the same, but my immersion and investment is different.

By not having my window into this wacky world reset every twenty minutes, I got more absorbed by the storytelling. Tone shifts felt more significant because they weren’t accompanied by an intro and outro. Fight sequences were more clearly presented with no breaks in-between. And that ending really hits home in-part because you haven’t already reached an end multiple times prior to it’s specific events.

This isn’t to say that you immediately improve anything but cutting it up into a film. I’ve watched many that would’ve been better served as a show… or a short.

I also don’t think this structure would work for the stories told in Chainsaw Man Season 1. Many of the show’s breaks heighten the tension, add mystery, and convey in a way that’d feel jarring in a two-hour film.

I just think making this Arc specifically a film was the perfect choice.

There’s a million decisions that are made in making a thing. One of the videos I’m currently writing is exactly about this. The biggest choices are the obvious ones. What’s the genre? What’s the look? What’s the feel? What’s the sound? But there’s one choice that’s even more fundamental than those.

What’s the medium?

I’ve fought tooth and nail for project I’ve collaborated with someone on to be a Mini-Series because certain story-arcs would just work better, and leave the intended impression, if a viewer after thinking “this friendship can’t possibly recover” sees and clicks…

NEXT EPISODE.

Sadly “what’s the medium?” is rarely given the luxury of being a choice.

Should a game studio conceive of a story that’d be more suitable to a film or a show… it’s still going to get made into a game because that’s what they can get funded and have more experience in.\ And I hold no blame against them for that. When you’re an artist, and your choice is do this to make something or do something different and not make it at all…

It’s not really a choice.

It’s just really awesome to see a perfect glove like Reze Arc.