Makima

Makima works for Japan's Public Safety Devil Hunters and occupies a position of substantial authority within the organization. By the beginning of the series, she is directly connected to the government and has enough influence to recruit unusual beings into Public Safety rather than immediately ordering their extermination. The official anime describes her as a Devil Hunter belonging to Public Safety Special Division 4 and serving directly under the Chief Cabinet Secretary.

Her first interaction with Denji occurs immediately after he has defeated the Zombie Devil. Makima recognizes that he is neither an ordinary human nor a conventional devil. Instead of treating him as a standard hostile target, she gives him a choice between joining Public Safety under her supervision and being killed as a devil.

Denji accepts because Makima offers almost everything his previous life lacked: regular food, human contact, shelter and the possibility of pursuing ordinary desires. She quickly recognizes how responsive he is to rewards and affection and uses both to motivate him during Public Safety missions. Her promise of increasingly intimate attention becomes tied directly to his willingness to fight dangerous devils.

Makima oversees or influences the creation of the unconventional Special Division 4, where humans work alongside Fiends, devils and other beings that ordinary Public Safety structures would regard as highly dangerous. Her willingness to use such agents demonstrates both her pragmatism and the unusually broad authority granted to her.

Her history before the beginning of the series remains deliberately obscure throughout the material covered by the television anime and Reze Arc film. Other characters clearly understand that she is extraordinarily dangerous, but Denji and many lower-ranking hunters receive very little information about the source of her power.

Makima presents herself as calm, courteous and almost impossible to provoke. She rarely needs to raise her voice to establish authority. Instructions that might sound like requests from another person carry an unmistakable expectation of obedience when delivered by her.

She is highly observant and skilled at identifying what other people want. With Denji, she quickly understands that hunger, romantic attention and approval are powerful incentives. Rather than demanding abstract loyalty to Public Safety, she frames dangerous assignments in terms that connect directly to his personal desires.

Her kindness is difficult to separate from control. Makima can provide comfort, encouragement and physical affection, but these moments often reinforce a hierarchy in which the recipient becomes more dependent on her approval. She frequently determines when affection is given and what behavior must precede it.

Makima is also unusually composed around violence. Events that terrify ordinary Public Safety personnel rarely disrupt her demeanor for long. This calmness makes her especially intimidating because other characters cannot easily tell whether she is frightened, surprised or emotionally affected by what is happening around her.

Her treatment of subordinates varies considerably. People who remain useful can receive protection and professional confidence, while failure or opposition can produce a much colder response. Makima's broader priorities are often withheld even from people directly participating in her operations.

Her interest in Chainsaw Man is noticeably different from her interest in Denji's ordinary life. Even before the complete reason becomes clear, she treats the power connected to his transformation as something of exceptional strategic importance.

Makima appears as a young adult woman of average build with long red hair, generally worn in a loose braid down her back with bangs framing her face. Her clothing is understated compared with many supernatural characters in the series.

She usually wears the standard Public Safety professional uniform: a white dress shirt, black tie and dark trousers. The simple outfit reinforces her position as a government official rather than visually advertising the scale of her abilities.

Her eyes are her most distinctive physical feature. They are yellow-gold with multiple red concentric rings around the pupils, producing a pattern unlike ordinary human eyes. The anime preserves this feature prominently in close-up shots.

Makima's body language is controlled and economical. She rarely adopts defensive postures or appears visibly tense even around dangerous devils. That stillness contributes significantly to how threatening she can appear without overt aggression.

She also maintains a neat appearance regardless of circumstance. The contrast between her orderly presentation and the extreme violence surrounding Public Safety is a recurring visual feature of her scenes.

Makima demonstrates abilities far beyond those expected from an ordinary human Devil Hunter. The first television season deliberately leaves the exact nature of those powers unclear, allowing viewers to see their results without receiving a complete explanation.

Her physical durability is immediately suspicious. During the coordinated attack on Public Safety personnel, Makima is apparently shot at close range aboard a train. She subsequently reappears without behaving as though the attack should have been fatal, providing one of the anime's earliest clear indications that her nature and abilities are being concealed.

Makima can kill people from enormous distances under specific circumstances. At Kyoto's shrine, she uses condemned prisoners and the names of selected targets to kill attackers elsewhere. The victims are crushed by an invisible force while Makima performs ritualized gestures, although the anime does not explain the complete mechanism behind the ability.

She can also exert powerful invisible force at closer range. Various attacks associated with her produce sudden physical destruction without requiring conventional weapons, and she possesses sensory abilities that appear to exceed ordinary human perception.

Makima demonstrates exceptional situational awareness. She can identify people and events from information that other characters would have difficulty obtaining and appears capable of tracking targets across considerable distances.

Makima is eventually revealed to be the Control Devil, one of the Horsemen and the embodiment of humanity's fear of control or conquest. Her human appearance is therefore not evidence that she is an ordinary contracted Devil Hunter.

Her principal supernatural ability allows her to dominate beings she considers inferior to herself. Controlled humans, devils, Fiends and hybrids can be compelled to obey her commands, and she can make use of abilities belonging to individuals placed under her control.

Makima can also use chains as a manifestation of control, connecting herself to dominated beings and drawing upon contracts or powers associated with them. This allows her combat abilities to extend far beyond a single personal attack style.

A contract with Japan's prime minister redirects attacks made against Makima into illnesses or accidents affecting Japanese citizens. This is the principal reason conventional attempts to kill her repeatedly fail.

Her abilities extend to manipulating memories and perceptions in people under her control, allowing her influence to affect not only what someone does but what they remember or believe about their circumstances.

Makima does not use a formal system of announced technique names. Her abilities are usually demonstrated directly, and many remain unexplained until considerably later in the manga.

Remote Crushing is the ritualized ability displayed at the Kyoto shrine. Makima requires the names of targets and sacrifices condemned prisoners while forming hand gestures. Each sacrifice causes a distant target's body to be crushed by an unseen force.

Invisible Force describes the powerful ranged attacks Makima can direct without visibly touching her target. She uses gestures or simple movements to inflict tremendous physical force at a distance.

Enhanced Senses allow Makima to gather information beyond normal human limitations. The complete extent of these senses is intentionally unclear during the early story.

Control allows Makima to dominate individuals she regards as beneath her. Once controlled, they can be ordered to act, speak or use their abilities according to her wishes.

Ability Appropriation allows Makima to make use of powers and contracts belonging to controlled subjects, dramatically expanding the range of supernatural effects available to her.

Chain Manifestation creates chains connected to beings under Makima's control. These visually represent the relationships of domination through which she accesses other abilities.

Damage Transfer Contract redirects lethal harm inflicted upon Makima into illnesses and accidents suffered by Japanese citizens through her contract with the prime minister.

Denji is the person most closely associated with Makima throughout the Public Safety Saga. Makima recruits Denji after his transformation and quickly becomes the center of his romantic ambitions. She rewards obedience with food, praise and controlled physical intimacy, giving Denji experiences he has never previously had. Their relationship is profoundly unequal because Makima controls his employment, housing and access to the life he wants. [Makima's true interest is ultimately directed toward Chainsaw Man and Pochita rather than Denji as an individual. She systematically constructs and destroys Denji's happiness in an effort to break his contract with Pochita.](#spoiler)

Pochita is central to Makima's long-term objectives. [Makima idolizes Chainsaw Man's ability to erase devils and the concepts associated with them by consuming them. She wants to defeat and control Pochita, then use that power to remove concepts she considers harmful from the world. Her fixation is so complete that she pays comparatively little attention to Denji, the human carrying Pochita's heart.](#spoiler)

Aki Hayakawa serves Public Safety under Makima and holds her in unusually high regard. Aki Hayakawa is emotionally attached to Makima and rarely questions why those feelings are so strong. She makes use of his competence and desire for revenge during numerous operations. [It is later implied that Aki Hayakawa's intense affection was influenced by Makima's powers, and she ultimately incorporates him into the sequence of events designed to break Denji psychologically.](#spoiler)

Power is assigned to work with Denji under Makima's authority. Makima can intimidate Power almost instantly despite the Blood Fiend's usual arrogance, and Power behaves with visible fear around her. [Makima later kills Power in front of Denji as part of her deliberate destruction of the family Denji has built.](#spoiler)

Kishibe works within Public Safety and understands far more about Makima's danger than most of her subordinates. Kishibe cooperates with her when necessary but maintains clear suspicion toward her motives. [Kishibe eventually organizes an operation against Makima after concluding that allowing her plans to proceed would be catastrophic.](#spoiler)

Himeno works within the Public Safety structure overseen by Makima and is partnered with Aki. Himeno understands the institutional dangers of Devil Hunting but does not possess the same knowledge of Makima that Kishibe appears to have.

Kobeni Higashiyama serves in Special Division 4 under Makima's broader authority. Kobeni Higashiyama's fear of Public Safety employment and inability to leave comfortably illustrate the coercive environment surrounding many of Makima's subordinates.

Angel Devil is one of the devils employed through Public Safety. Makima takes particular interest in his unusual lifespan-converting abilities. [Makima has altered Angel Devil's memories and exercises direct control over him, later using his powers for her own objectives.](#spoiler)

Beam, the Shark Fiend, operates within Makima's Special Division. [Beam's prior knowledge and intense reverence for Chainsaw Man place him among several beings whose relationship to Pochita predates Denji's understanding of the larger conflict Makima is pursuing.](#spoiler)

Reze enters Denji's life during the Reze Arc and threatens Makima's control over both him and Chainsaw Man. Makima becomes directly involved once Reze's mission and identity are exposed. [After Reze decides to return to Denji at the café, Makima intercepts her with Angel and prevents the reunion.](#spoiler)

Quanxi becomes connected to Makima during later Public Safety operations. [Makima defeats and eventually controls Quanxi, later deploying her alongside other weapon hybrids.](#spoiler)

Katana Man participates in the attack against Public Safety forces. Makima retaliates against the group with lethal efficiency and uses the Kyoto shrine ritual to eliminate several participants at long distance.

[Nayuta is the reincarnation of the Control Devil after Makima's defeat. Kishibe entrusts Nayuta to Denji, believing that raising the new Control Devil through familial affection rather than government manipulation may prevent a repetition of Makima's life.](#spoiler)

Makima enters the story immediately after Denji's transformation into Chainsaw Man. Rather than functioning only as the official who recruits him, she establishes the terms under which he begins experiencing ordinary human life: food, housing and companionship are all provided through Public Safety and therefore remain connected to her authority.

Early missions position her as the source of Denji's goals. She promises rewards if he performs well and turns his personal desires into incentives for hunting the Gun Devil. Because Denji has never experienced healthy romantic attention, he interprets these interactions as evidence that a genuine relationship with Makima may eventually be possible.

The coordinated attack against Special Division 4 dramatically expands the mystery surrounding her. Makima appears to be killed on a train, only to arrive in Kyoto unharmed and retaliate against the attackers through a remote ritual that ordinary Devil Hunters cannot reproduce.

Following the attack, surviving Public Safety teams are reorganized. Makima receives greater direct control over Special Division 4, bringing human hunters, Fiends and devils into a single experimental unit. Her institutional importance increases at the same time that the nature of her power becomes more difficult to explain.

The Reze Arc continues presenting Makima as an important part of Denji's emotional world even while another woman becomes central to his attention. Official promotion for the 2025 film explicitly framed Denji as caught emotionally between Makima and Reze.

The International Assassins arc makes it increasingly clear that Makima is not merely reacting to attempts to seize Denji. Foreign governments consider her dangerous enough that several operations involve preventing the balance of power from shifting in her favor.

The Gun Devil storyline reveals that Makima has become a central geopolitical threat in her own right. The United States president accepts enormous human sacrifice in an attempt to use the Gun Devil against her, confirming that foreign powers regard stopping Makima as a matter of national survival.

Makima ultimately reveals herself as the Control Devil and explains that her objective centers on Chainsaw Man's ability to erase concepts. She wants to control Pochita and remove things such as death, war and hunger according to her own vision of a better world.

To break Denji's contract with Pochita, Makima deliberately gives Denji the family and happiness he wanted before destroying them. Aki and Power are turned into instruments of that plan, leaving Denji so psychologically devastated that he gives up control over his own life.

Denji eventually defeats Makima by exploiting the flaw at the center of her obsession: she recognizes Chainsaw Man by scent but never truly recognizes Denji. He separates himself from Pochita, catches Makima unaware and prevents her regeneration through an unconventional plan based on consuming her.

Makima is introduced through Denji's perspective, which makes her initially appear far warmer than many of the other adults in his life. She gives him food, speaks gently and tells him directly what she expects. For someone accustomed to yakuza abuse, those basic gestures resemble extraordinary kindness.

As Denji's social world expands, the imbalance becomes easier to recognize. Aki and Power argue with him, frustrate him and sometimes hurt him emotionally, but their relationships gradually become reciprocal. Makima's relationship with him remains structured around approval flowing downward from superior to subordinate.

The series progressively changes the significance of her calmness. What first appears as confidence becomes increasingly unnerving as violence that shocks everyone else fails to disturb her. Her ability to anticipate events and survive apparent death steadily separates her from the ordinary Public Safety officials around her.

Her behavior toward Denji also takes on a different meaning as he begins developing genuine attachments elsewhere. The stronger his independent relationships become, the more consequential Makima's ability to influence his life becomes.

The revelation that Makima is the Control Devil reorganizes virtually every earlier interaction around domination. Her relationships are built around hierarchy because her supernatural nature allows her to control beings she regards as inferior. Even affection becomes difficult to separate from possession.

Makima nevertheless possesses a genuine desire beneath that domination. Pochita later explains that the Control Devil's deepest wish is to create equal relationships and something resembling a family, but Makima's power and worldview make true equality almost impossible for her to achieve.

Her plan to create a better world therefore combines sincere aspiration with authoritarian means. She identifies suffering she wants removed, but the mechanism she chooses requires placing Chainsaw Man and eventually reality itself under her control.

The contrast with Nayuta becomes Makima's final narrative legacy. The new Control Devil is given to Denji specifically so that affection, shared meals and ordinary family life can provide the equal bonds Makima could not create for herself.

Makima's name is written マキマ entirely in katakana. No official kanji spelling is provided, so the manga does not assign a direct kanji-based meaning to her name.

Tatsuki Fujimoto has explained a wordplay connection between Makima and the Japanese word for chainsaw, chainsaw being chensō rather than an obvious direct derivation, but he has also discussed the name through the idea of removing the middle of "Makima" to leave "mama." This is commonly associated with the maternal position Makima occupies in Denji's emotional life, though care is warranted when interpreting the wordplay beyond Fujimoto's own remarks.

The name is notable for sounding ordinary compared with explicit supernatural labels such as Power, Angel Devil or Chainsaw Man. Her human-sounding identity supports the deliberate uncertainty surrounding her nature during the early story.

Her eventual title carries much more explicit meaning. As the Control Devil, Makima embodies the fear of control, conquest and domination. The English translation also commonly connects her with the Horseman traditionally identified with Conquest.

• Makima's official anime character profile identifies her as a Public Safety Special Division 4 Devil Hunter serving directly under the Chief Cabinet Secretary.

• Her official age, birthday and height have not been established, so they are omitted rather than inferred from appearance.

• Her eyes have a distinctive pattern of concentric red rings, one of the clearest visual indicators that she differs from ordinary humans.

• Tomori Kusunoki voices Makima in Japanese, while Suzie Yeung performs her in the principal English dub.

• Makima ranked third in VIZ's 2020 English-language Chainsaw Man popularity poll. The Japanese results reproduced by VIZ placed her second, behind Power.

• In VIZ's August 2022 poll, Makima ranked sixth, behind Power, Denji, Aki, Kobeni's car and Kobeni.

• Makima is particularly fond of dogs and keeps several of them at her home.

• Her calm treatment of Denji as something resembling a pet is established very early: she explicitly tells him that Public Safety will treat him as a dog under her ownership if he chooses to remain with her.

Makima is a principal character in MAPPA's television anime adaptation of Chainsaw Man. Tomori Kusunoki voices her in Japanese, and the official anime character page identifies her as the Public Safety Devil Hunter connected to Special Division 4 and the Chief Cabinet Secretary.

The television adaptation preserves much of the restraint central to her manga portrayal. Rather than emphasizing her danger through constant spectacle, the anime frequently holds on her expressions, eyes and measured delivery while other characters react far more visibly to the same events.

Her Kyoto shrine sequence is one of the first season's principal demonstrations of supernatural power. By withholding a complete explanation, the adaptation maintains the same uncertainty as the manga regarding what Makima is actually capable of doing.

Makima also appears prominently in Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, released theatrically in Japan on September 19, 2025. The film continues directly from the television series and preserves Makima's influence over Denji even while Reze becomes his principal new romantic interest. Official 2025 promotion explicitly highlighted Denji's emotional conflict between Makima and Reze.

The Reze Arc is therefore the current widely adapted boundary relevant to Makima's spoiler treatment here. Her later manga identity, objectives and role in the concluding portion of the Public Safety Saga remain beyond what viewers of the completed television season and Reze film have been shown.

Makima also appears in merchandise, collaboration events, figures and mobile-game promotions associated with the franchise. Her red hair, Public Safety suit and concentric-ring eyes remain her primary visual identifiers in official products.

Makima became one of Chainsaw Man's most popular characters during the manga's first serialization. VIZ's 2020 English-language popularity poll placed her third behind Denji and Power, while the Japanese ranking reproduced alongside it placed Makima second behind Power and ahead of Aki, Reze and Denji.

Her ranking remained high after the manga's first part concluded. VIZ's August 2022 poll placed Makima sixth, with Power first, Denji second and Aki third. The result kept her within the franchise's most recognizable group even after the full implications of her role had become known to manga readers.

Makima's design contributes substantially to that recognition. The combination of an ordinary government suit, braided red hair and unmistakably inhuman ringed eyes allows her to appear simultaneously bureaucratic and supernatural without the elaborate monster features used for many devils.

Her relationship with Denji also became central to discussion of the series because his attraction is inseparable from economic and emotional dependence. Makima provides material security and controlled affection to someone who has never possessed either, giving her extraordinary influence without needing to rely visibly on supernatural force in every interaction.

The anime amplified this aspect through Tomori Kusunoki's restrained performance and MAPPA's subdued direction. Makima's dialogue is often delivered with very little visible effort, placing the burden of tension on what other characters believe she might do rather than on overt displays of aggression.

For manga readers, the later Control Devil revelation transforms Makima from Denji's mysterious superior into the central antagonist of the Public Safety Saga. Her popularity therefore spans two radically different readings of the same character: the composed government Devil Hunter presented to Denji and the being who has been constructing much of his emotional environment for her own objective.

Her final motivation complicates that antagonism without erasing it. Makima wants relationships and a world free from forms of suffering she considers unnecessary, but she understands both goals through domination. That contradiction carries forward through Nayuta, whose upbringing tests whether the Control Devil can develop differently when given the ordinary familial affection Makima never learned to create as an equal.