Makima: The Control Devil — Character Guide & Lore Deep Dive
Makima is the most enigmatic and dangerous character in Chainsaw Man Part 1. Director of Public Safety Division 4, she recruits Denji and shapes every event in the series. This guide covers her abilities, true identity, and the chilling logic behind her actions.
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Makima is the Director of Special Division 4 and the person who recruits Denji into Public Safety after his transformation into the Chainsaw Hybrid. She presents as a calm, collected, and subtly manipulative superior who takes a personal interest in Denji.
Her true identity is the Control Devil — the embodiment of humanity's fear of control and domination. As the Control Devil, she has existed across multiple lifetimes, always working toward a singular, consuming obsession.
Abilities of the Control Devil
Makima's core ability is domination of any being she perceives as lesser than herself. She controls Devils, Fiends, Hybrids, and humans by establishing a hierarchy through eye contact or her overwhelming presence. Victims under her control lose their will entirely.
She can transmit lethal force across vast distances by using the bodies of Japanese civilians as conduits, crushing distant targets by crushing rats in her vicinity. This makes her effectively impossible to kill in direct confrontation — any damage dealt to her is instead distributed across ordinary people throughout Japan who die in her place.
She is also extraordinarily physically capable: she catches bullets casually, and her combat ability in direct confrontation exceeds virtually every other character in Part 1.
Her Obsession with Chainsaw Man
Makima's ultimate goal is to control the Chainsaw Devil and use its power to erase all suffering from the world — grief, death, war, hunger. She believes this is the only way to create a world worth living in, even if it means erasing the fears that define human experience.
This idealism is what makes her genuinely frightening. She is not motivated by cruelty or sadism. She believes absolutely in her cause and is willing to destroy everything Denji loves to achieve it.
Her Relationship with Denji
Makima understands Denji completely and exploits that understanding ruthlessly. She offers him the thing he has always wanted — a sense of belonging, purpose, and affection — while systematically dismantling every genuine relationship he forms so that she becomes his only anchor.
The tragedy is that Denji is aware, on some level, that he is being used. He continues anyway, because the warmth she offers — however false — is more than he has ever known.
Legacy
Even after the events of Part 1 conclude, Makima's influence echoes through Part 2 in the form of Nayuta — the reincarnated Control Devil who Denji is tasked with raising. The series asks whether the same soul, given a different upbringing, becomes something entirely different.
Makima remains one of the most discussed and analysed characters in modern manga, praised for the way Fujimoto used her to critique parasocial obsession, toxic admiration, and the dangerous appeal of absolute certainty.