Studio MAPPA’s Chainsaw Man made the leap from television to film with its most recent adaption, Reze Arc. The film opened with $8.46 million in Japan and $17.25 million in the US…which isn’t quite Demon Slayer numbers, but enough to worry if, like that series, Chainsaw Man could choose to leave TV permanently.
The next arc to be adapted has been revealed: Assassins Arc, covering chapters 53-70. MAPPA put out a short teaser consisting of a series of completed shots with no dialogue set to a techno beat. What you need to know is that the events of Reze Arc caused so much commotion that the existence of Chainsaw Man has been revealed to the world, and now the world’s top assassins are converging in Japan to target Denji. It’s never easy being this guy.
But the real question is…are we looking at TV clips, or movie clips? MAPPA won’t say. The only possible lead we have is that their website does not specifically label Assassins Arc as a feature film like they did with Reze Arc. That could mean a return to TV, or it could just mean they didn’t bother with a label.
Here’s who’s going to be behind this latest adventure: Hiroshi Seko is writing the scripts, Tatsuya Yoshihara is directing, kensuke ushio is providing the music score, character designs will come from Kazutaka Sugiyama with sub-Character designs by Shōichi, Ken Seo, Shun, Hiroyuki Saita and Naoki Chigira. Yūsuke Takeda and Takuya Munemasa are the art directors, Satoshi Yamauchi. and Mahiro Tamai will direct the CG elements and Yasushi Nagura will serve as sound director.
There are now a finite number of stories that can be adapted from Chainsaw Man, as the manga abruptly wrapped production last March. Anime tends to be years behind the printed page, though, so you can look forward to a few more arcs before the end.
