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Chainsaw Man Reze Arc: The Flower Symbolism Behind the Ending — What Japan Read

チェンソーマン レゼ篇のラスト、日本のファンの読み方

Chainsaw Man
Chainsaw Man Reze Arc: The Flower Symbolism Behind the Ending — What Japan Read
“Saw a take on Twitter that even if they reunited here, the story would just let them be happy until they had a couple of kids together — and THEN Makima erases them. I almost threw up.”

Xで見た、仮にここでレゼと再会したとしても二人の子供が出来たくらいまでハッピーにしてからマキマに消されるって聞いて吐きそうだった

— @丸トム

Chainsaw Man's Reze Arc — the bittersweet bomb-girl love story from Part 1, now its own theatrical film — is the storyline English-speaking fans most often call the manga's emotional peak, and the most-liked Japanese reactions don't just cry over it. They dissect it. The thread that rises to the top fixates on the details Western readers tend to fly past: the flower symbolism (Denji's first white flower means "purity"; the single red gerbera Reze dies holding means "love at first sight" and "you are my destiny"), the perfect symmetry of a story that opens with Denji coughing up a flower and ends with him eating one, and a stack of anime-original touches — milk cartons drying at a school, a line about being "sixteen and studying for exams" — that only pay off on a second watch. The recurring theme is that the tragedy isn't an accident of bad timing but the point: even if Reze had made it to the café, fans agree, Makima was always waiting, so the one mercy the story grants is Denji's silhouette waiting for her at closing time. It builds to the kind of verdict only a Fujimoto reader would land.

This titleJapanese reactions to Chainsaw ManRead all 3 roundups on the title page
The official international main trailer for "Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc." The fan reactions below come from a Japanese reaction-compilation video about the arc's ending. （YouTube · MAPPA CHANNEL）

Japanese fan reactions (excerpted from 810)

  • A not-so-bright boy like Denji showing up with a bouquet so huge he needs both arms to hold it — as the single biggest gesture of love he can even conceive of — fits him way too perfectly.

    デンジくんみたいな頭の良くない男の子が両手で抱えるくらい大っきな花束持ってるのが、自分の考えられる最大限の愛情表現としてピッタリすぎる。

    — @ddddddでんdddでdddでん12,188 likes

  • No deep hidden meaning, just a dead-straight expression of love — a totally peak-Denji way to make a move.

    なんか深い意味とかなく直球の愛情表現でTheデンジって感じのアプローチの仕方だったよね。

    — @黒猫猫_kuroneko1,106 likes

  • He's such a cheapskate he'll only donate one yen, he loves eating, he treats flowers like food — and yet here he spends his tiny allowance on a giant bouquet and waits at the café until closing, ready to throw away the comfortable life he's started to treasure just to run away with her. Denji being that earnest had me ugly crying.

    募金は1円でドケチだし、食べるの大好きでお花も食べ物みたいな扱いだったのに少ない小遣いで大きな花束を買って、大切になってきてた楽しい生活を捨ててまで一緒に逃げようと閉店までレゼを待つデンジが健気でボロボロ泣いてしまった

    — @でででで-c2t188 likes

  • The one and only mercy in the whole thing is that, right at the very end, she gets to see Denji's silhouette waiting for her at the café.

    最後の最後カフェで待ってくれてるデンジの後ろ姿見れたのが唯一の救いすぎる

    — @すらいむくん-b5b12,182 likes

  • The saddest part is that Denji never finds out Reze was actually on her way to the café.

    レゼが喫茶店に向かってたことがデンジに伝わらないのが悲しすぎる

    — @HiNa_Ki03132,420 likes

  • I just wish Denji could know that there was a girl who cared about him — Denji, not Chainsaw Man.

    デンジにもチェンソーじゃなくデンジのことを想ってくれた女の子がいた事を知って欲しい

    — @タイプC-f4e2,134 likes

  • Makima only ever looked at Pochita — at Chainsaw Man — but Reze was looking at *Denji*. That contrast wrecks me too.

    マキマさんが見てたのはポチタ（チェンソーマン）だけだけどレゼは「デンジを」見てたのになぁって、そういうのも切ない

    — @eee-p5e4t2,568 likes

  • THIS is why they had to lovingly draw out Reze's whole daily commute early on (holding back tears).

    だから序盤にレゼの通勤風景をねっとりと描写する必要があったんですね（涙目）

    — @ココ-b9h6,806 likes

  • The anime-original shot of milk cartons drying at the school is there because Reze never went to school either — so she couldn't tell it was a middle school, not a high school.

    学校のシーンでわざわざ牛乳パックを移すアニオリを入れたのは、レゼも学校に行ってなくてあそこが高校ではなく中学校という事に気づけなかったから

    — @なあなあぽむ1,125 likes

  • The milk drying at the school, and Reze saying something impossible like "at sixteen you're cramming for entrance exams" — after seeing the movie, both of those made me go "…oh."

    学校に牛乳が干してあったのも、レゼが「16は受験勉強」ってありえないことを言っていたのも、映画見た後「ハッ…」としちゃった

    — @hima_063035 likes

  • The single gerbera Reze is holding at the end has a flower meaning of "love at first sight" and "you are my destiny"... which makes you think that's exactly why she didn't kill Denji the first time they met.

    最後レゼが持ってたガーベラ1本の花言葉は「一目惚れ」「あなたは運命の人」なんよね、、やっぱ最初に会った時にデンジを殺さなかったのもそういうことなんかなって

    — @wanpati9293,937 likes

  • I'm pretty sure the white flower Denji first hands Reze means "purity," and the red one she's holding at the very end means "love"...

    デンジが初めレゼに渡した白い花の花言葉が「純粋」でレベが最期持ってた赤い花が「愛」って意味だったと思う...

    — @mokumaru-dayo106 likes

  • I love the read that Denji figured: she was happy with one flower, so a big bouquet would make her even happier.

    レゼが一輪の花で喜んでくれたから、大きい花束だともっと喜んでくれると思ったっていう考察が好きです

    — @さいとう-i5r1,435 likes

  • The story starts with Denji coughing up a flower and meeting Reze, and ends with Denji eating one. That symmetry is gorgeous.

    デンジが花を吐き出してレゼと出会って物語が始まって、デンジが花を食べて物語が終わるの綺麗で好き

    — @HRLAUPRSXVANXV3,466 likes

  • One of the things that makes the Reze Arc so beautiful is how symmetrical the whole structure is.

    レゼ編の美しさのひとつが物語の展開がシンメトリーなことにある

    — @サバ味噌1000-793 likes

  • Ending it on "Reze falling in love = the Angel Devil running her through the heart" is such a Tatsuki Fujimoto way to put it. I love it.

    最後はレゼが恋に落ちる＝天使の悪魔に心臓を貫かれるって表現が藤本タツキらしさあって好き

    — @asopasomaso43894,748 likes

  • Her dying with an angel piercing her heart at the end is an homage to Cupid, and I genuinely love that.

    最後天使に心臓貫かれて死ぬの 恋のキューピットをオマージュしててまじで好き

    — @PrimoPiatto-t9s1,458 likes

  • You go into the Reze Arc thinking it's just a standard spy honeytrap, and then it turns out she actually fell for him — that's too much, I'm crying.

    レゼ編、普通ーにスパイとしてのハニトラなのかと思いきや、ちゃんと好きだったのが泣けすぎる

    — @遮二-無二361 likes

  • A hero seduced by a Russian femme-fatale spy; a spy who sets out to deceive her mark and falls for him instead; the two of them swearing to run away together, only to never be able to meet again — running with the kind of clichés movies have done 200 times over, and pulling it off THIS well. Incredible.

    ロシアの女スパイに色仕掛けされる主人公とか 騙してるつもりが標的を好きになっちゃうスパイとか ２人で逃避行しようって誓うけどもう会えないとか これまで200回は映画でやったであろうベッタベタなネタやるの 最高やな

    — @tasa2119831 likes

  • Honestly, *because* the bare bones are such a cliché, all the unhinged peak-Chainsaw-Man madness around it slides right in.

    逆に要素だけ抜くとベッタベタだからこそ、それ以外のTHEチェンソーマンな滅茶苦茶な面白さがスッと入ってくるんだな

    — @みお-o2z121 likes

  • It's precisely because everything else is so deranged that a played-straight beat like this hits unbelievably hard.

    他がイカレまくってるからこそこういうベタな展開がめちゃくちゃ悲しく感じる

    — @ふぇえw15 likes

  • Even if she'd reached the café, you still can't easily picture a happy life after — and that, to me, is the most beautiful thing about the Reze Arc.

    たとえカフェに辿り着いたとしても、その後の幸せな生活を容易には想像できないところがレぜ編に感じる綺麗さの最たるところだと思う

    — @bell99001,855 likes

  • There's a line basically going "if Makima was behind it all, then none of it mattered, oh well" — so Reze surely knew that going to Denji meant a 99% chance Makima just crushes her. And she went to the café anyway. That's too precious.

    「マキマが裏にいるなら意味なかったじゃん、あーあ」みたいなセリフがあるから、デンジの元に行っても99%マキマに捻り56されるのは分かっていたであろうが、それでも喫茶店に行ったのが尊すぎる。

    — @枕の営業部長2,197 likes

  • The moment Makima had her in her sights, the bad ending was unavoidable — but Reze fought it to the very end.

    マキマに目つけられた時点でバッドエンドは避けられないけど、最後まで抗おうとしたんだよなレゼは

    — @msymsygkgk158 likes

  • Reze maybe never got a life worth saving, but the fact that, at the very end, she got to see Denji's back as he kept their promise and came to the café — that one thing, I'm genuinely glad for.

    レゼ、救われない人生だったのかもしれないけど 最期に約束通りにカフェに来てくれてるデンジの後ろ姿を見られたのだけは本当に良かった

    — @パン津玄師パン電793 likes

  • I kept thinking "if only she'd made it to the café"... but honestly, that version would be way more gruesome. I don't want to see it.

    もしあの時カフェに行けてたら...って思ってたけど正直そっちの方がグロくてみたくなさすぎる。

    — @mi-z1n756 likes

  • The instant I read it I was going "no, no, this is wrong" — and then, with time, it turns into "right, right, this was the answer." That shift is what's so beautiful.

    読んだ瞬間は チガウ、チガウってなったけど 時間がたつと 正解正解ってなるのが美しいな

    — @キノコエリンギ-o5k618 likes

  • In the bonus booklet Fujimoto said something like "I made it an ending you don't really linger on" — sir, I've been lingering on it since the day I first read it in serialization. I'm crying.

    特典の小冊子で「あんまり引きずらない終わり方にした」的な事言ってたけど連載で初めて読んだ時から今までずっと引きずってるんですが泣

    — @カリバーン-x8o216 likes

  • But I'm greedy, so I still want to see the happy ending too.

    でも俺は欲張りだからハッピーエンドも見たいわけ

    — @お米-v7u646 likes

  • Guess the only way to get the happy-ending what-if now is to draw it myself…

    もうハッピーエンドIFは自分で描くしか…

    — @すいぞっかん183 likes

  • Wait — are YOU Tatsuki Fujimoto?

    お前、藤本タツキ？

    — @jamjam_chikawa107 likes
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