Chainsaw Man's Illusion of Choice: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

Ach ja, Chainsaw Man the Movie: Reze Arc recently hit the theaters in my area and to the surprise of no one, I really enjoyed it. It is absolutely the kind of movie you would do yourself a favor by experiencing it on the big screen or at the very least with the best audio setup you can get and I see literally no problem recommending it to anyone who read the manga or seen the first season of the anime. But with that being said, in true Chainsaw Man fashion, it is not the insanity of the characters or the action spectacle, but an unassuming and contemplative question, through which the entire Reze arc can be looked through, that eventually forced me to write down some of my thoughts on this beautifully tragic story. Spoilers ahead.

Around a quarter into the movie, independently from another, both Reze and the Angel Devil ask Denji and Aki respectively, which they prefer, the town mouse or the country mouse, referring to one of Aesop’s Fables: The town mouse may live its life in relative luxury, but is under the constant threat of humans and cats, while the country mouse may have less food, but does not have to fear for its own life. Both make no real attempt to obfuscate what they mean by raising this question and proceed to explain why they would choose the life of the country mouse. This is then contrasted by both Denji and Aki explaining why they would rather choose the town mouse instead. What seems primarily as a quick way to show the differences in life philosophy between the two pairings, is something that has to be questioned and reexamined throughout the arc constantly.

Arguably the quickest answer comes from Aki, as he, as a child, lived the life of the country mouse, until the Gun Devil took it from him. In a sense, Aki’s decision “to live in the city” is an extension of his self-destructive tendencies. Him working as a devil hunter is not primarily due to a sense of either justice or responsibility, but revenge and his desire to confront the Gun Devil himself. After his contract with the Future Devil, he is deeply aware that his current path will result in his own death, yet he keeps going. Instead of leading a comfortable, but risky life, Aki’s priorities seem to be mixed up, with what poses the threat of death being also the very reward he gets for enduring it. Ironically, despite the certainty of his fate, Aki might also be the only character who could defy his decision. Technically, nothing is holding him back from choosing the country mouse, or in more concrete terms, quit being a devil hunter and give up on his vendetta, but if that were ever a possibility for him, he would have never gone down that path to begin with.

In a slightly different way, Angel Devil also has the seeming advantages and disadvantages backwards, choosing the country mouse, because he would rather die than keep working as a devil hunter. Again, the safety aspect of both ways of life are almost secondary to what he considers to be the real appeal of the uneventful and boring life of the country mouse. If one were to rephrase the whole decision as an assessment of risk and reward, Angel Devil doesn’t want the “reward” to such a degree, that he will literally choose the “risk” instead, which twists the very premise of the town and country mouse, as his circumstances don’t apply to how one would normally think about it.

By contrast, at first, Denji and Reze seem a lot more straightforward, if by no means less complicated. Denji is only able to view Reze’s question through his own very limited perspective of what both the life of the town and country mouse could be. Before being picked up by Makima, Denji was treated as less than a human and without any prospect of having a proper future. But now? Bread with jam and even his own futon. That’s the kind of opulence not even kings could dream of! Even after Reze rightfully points out that his current situation barely counts as the absolute minimum, Denji doesn’t really waver, because there is something else entirely he gained. He started having dreams and aspirations of his own, he is experiencing things he never did and stopped being lonely. Despite a rough start, he became friends with Aki and Power, felt appreciated for doing a good job and fell in love not just once but twice. All things he can’t even imagine giving up now. In light of all that, being almost killed and confronting horrors beyond his comprehension barely registers. This is the point in which Denji and Reze fundamentally differ and why they initially come to different conclusions.

On the surface, Reze is rather similar to Denji and part of why she is able to so easily manipulate him is because they are walking in the same shoes. Being a Jane Doe and essentially nothing more than a tool for the Soviets to retrieve the heart of the Chainsaw Devil, there isn’t a lot for her to live for, despite yearning for the same things Denji does. However, as she can’t acquire them, she would rather choose a simple life than what she currently has, which is no life at all. When she asks Denji at the end of the festival to run away with her, this is where the small differences between them amount to something more substantial. Despite how much Denji thinks he loves Reze, he can’t bring himself to abandon everything he gained by coming into the city, while Reze assumes there is nothing to lose.

While 95 percent of the relationship between Reze and Denji is based on lies and deception, its those last five percent, which causes the two to rethink their assumptions of what kind of life they think is possible for themselves. Despite having fought to death at least three times over and making it abundantly clear how sick and tired he is of how everyone seems to only be interested in the heart of the Chainsaw Devil instead of his own, Denji still gives Reze a choice: She can return to where she came from and leave his life as quickly as she entered it, or come back to the café where he will be waiting for her. So, on the train platform, she once again gets confronted with the same question. What would she rather choose, the town mouse or the country mouse? It is a very basic setup. She initially confronted Denji just to kill him, but part of her also undoubtedly enjoyed the time she spent with him. The teenage romance might have been fake, but the feelings were genuine. She taught him as many things as he taught her. If not love, it is at least the small prospect of being able to live a life she thinks is worthwhile and fun, outside of the control of other people. If Denji can find happiness, and he is so much like her, why not her too? The train leaves the station and in the same way she was first introduced at the beginning of the movie, she makes her way to the café.

Makima is not a mouse. In her own words, she too likes the country mouse, not because she wants to live like it, but because it makes her calm when she releases the dogs and all the wild mice get caught after the fields were freshly dug up. For Reze, there never was a choice that could grant her either a fulfilling life or one in safety. In Chainsaw Man, there is no life of the town or country mouse, only the pursuit of your own happiness in spite of the control that people like Makima represent. After Angel Devil deals the final blow, he too has to reconsider his choice and between the kindness he was shown by Aki and his own realization that the desire to not work might come with a few more asterisks attached than just death, makes his decision an easy one.

Damn, it has been a good while since I last wrote about something for its own sake… and it shows. This is by far not the best thing I could have mustered up, in parts because I kinda wrote myself into a corner by just focussing on this barely-disguised metaphor, which isn’t actually that interesting to analyze on its own. The movie really lives by its characters and just reducing the dynamic of Denji and Reze to this metaphor does not do the story justice. Seriously, Chainsaw Man is the only thing, which can effortlessly go from coming-of-life romance to Sharknado with explosions and feel coherent all the way through. So yeah, Chainsaw Man is good and hopefully I will find the motivation to write about more stuff again, because I have been experiencing peak this year. Until next time.