Long before Denji’s story began, a war raged in Hell. The Control Devil and her sisters—the dreaded Horsemen—faced off against Chainsaw Man in a battle of existence itself. But just when their clash reached its final crescendo, Chainsaw Man vanished without a trace. The Control Devil searched endlessly, her obsession unyielding, but Pochita—the true heart of Chainsaw Man—was nowhere to be found.

What she never realized was that Pochita had changed form in the shadow of death, slipping away to Earth in a weakened state. The Horsemen eventually followed, each taking their own path. The Control Devil, ever cunning, donned a human mask—becoming “Makima,” the cold, calculating head of Japan’s Special Division 4.

The Introduction Arc

Makima first appeared not in fire and blood, but in quiet curiosity. Arriving to exterminate the Zombie Devil, she found someone else had beaten her to it. A boy—half-human, half-devil—stood before her, covered in gore but radiating something unusual. She caught his scent and realized: he was neither fully human, nor fully devil.

That boy was Denji, fused with the very being she had once hunted—Chainsaw Man. When she asked who he was, his only response was a plea: “Hug me.” The moment she embraced him, Denji reverted to his human form. With a chilling calmness, Makima offered him two choices—death at her hands, or life as her pet. Hungry, desperate, and yearning for care, Denji chose the leash.

Makima’s Strings

On the surface, Makima treated Denji with kindness, feeding him steaming bowls of udon and offering him warmth he had never known. When she noticed his hunger during a car ride, she promised him food—seemingly tender, yet with a quiet calculation in every gesture. At a small shop, when a man burst in begging for help, Makima didn’t move herself. Instead, she sent Denji, reminding him of his role as her pet.

When he returned, bruised but victorious, she praised him. Like a master rewarding obedience, she stroked both his ego and his hunger. She explained that while others like him existed, his case was unique. With her sharp nose, she could smell it—Pochita still lived within him. And so, she fed Denji udon when he couldn’t feed himself, weaving affection into chains.

When Denji nervously asked her what kind of men she liked, she replied with a disarming smile: “Boys like you.”

Into Division 4

Soon, Denji’s new life began under Makima’s command. She introduced him to the ragtag family he would live and fight alongside—Aki Hayakawa, the stoic Devil Hunter, and Power, the chaotic Blood Fiend. For Denji, it was the first step into a world of devils, danger, and a bond with Makima that was far more sinister than he could ever imagine.

Bat Devil Arc

Tensions ran high within Division 4. Power and Denji bickered like children, their chaos filling the air, until Makima’s calm but commanding voice cut through it: a simple request to be quiet — gentle on the surface, yet undeniably absolute.

Behind closed doors, darker truths emerged. The higher-ups revealed to Makima that the Soviet Union was weaponizing Devils, turning them into tools of war. This revelation only added to the weight on her shoulders, though Makima, as always, remained unreadable.

To keep her pawns busy, she ordered Denji and Power to patrol. But when Power’s reckless nature got the better of her and she slaughtered the Sea Cucumber Devil in broad daylight, Makima arrived at the scene. With that signature calm smile, she reminded them of the consequences: killing a Devil under police jurisdiction was punishable by death. And yet, in the same breath, she turned her gaze away, sparing them with nothing more than a warning. Mercy? Or calculation? With Makima, the answer was never simple.

Later, in her office, Aki Hayakawa gave his report on the battle with the Bat and Leech Devils. Makima observed him with quiet precision, noting that he had grown more flexible — a claim he denied with the stubbornness of a man clinging to his ideals. The next morning, Makima’s influence deepened further when she called Aki with new orders: Power would now live with him and Denji. A family, forged not out of love, but control.

Back at headquarters, Denji’s distracted thoughts betrayed his desires. When Makima pressed him, he confessed his wish for intimacy, fumbling in boyish honesty. Makima, with unsettling tenderness, bit his finger and guided his hand to her chest — a gesture equal parts promise and manipulation. She whispered temptation into his ears: if he could kill the Gun Devil, she would grant him any wish. The hunt for the world’s most feared Devil became intertwined with Denji’s deepest longing.

And so, Division 4 was ordered to confront the Eternity Devil, to seize yet another piece of the Gun Devil’s flesh.

Eternity Devil Arc

Victory brought with it fleeting moments of joy. After defeating the Eternity Devil, the team celebrated with drinks, their laughter trying to drown out the lingering taste of blood and fear. Makima, ever the enigma, moved between these moments with her usual grace, half a participant and half a puppeteer pulling strings unseen.

But even in celebration, darkness was never far. As Makima prepared to meet with Special Division 1, tragedy struck. Her Devil Hunters — her “family” of soldiers and pawns — were ambushed by followers of the Gun Devil. The night turned crimson, proving once again that in the world Makima ruled, triumph was only ever a temporary illusion.

Katana Man Arc

The taste of blood still lingered when the next storm broke. The Gun Devil’s shadows stretched long, and its followers struck mercilessly at the heart of Public Safety. Division 4, barely given time to breathe, was thrown into chaos.

The ambush came swift and brutal. Gunfire ripped through the air, cutting down Devil Hunters as if they were nothing more than fragile dolls. In the carnage, allies fell, and the once unshakable sense of control Makima exuded seemed — for a fleeting moment — disrupted.

But Makima was never one to stay down. Even death itself bent to her will. From the darkness of an assassination, she reemerged, untouched, her calm smile more chilling than the bullets that had tried to claim her. With quiet authority, she manipulated the battlefield as though it were a chessboard. Every move, every sacrifice, every death — all part of the silent symphony she conducted.

The enemy brought forth the Katana Man, a hybrid whose rage mirrored Denji’s own cursed existence. Their clash was brutal, reckless, and raw — steel against chainsaw, vengeance against hunger. Yet behind it all, Makima’s presence loomed, subtle but undeniable. She didn’t simply command Division 4; she owned it, bending their destinies to serve her purpose.

And when the smoke cleared, when the survivors stumbled out of the wreckage, one truth lingered: Division 4 wasn’t just fighting Devils. They were being tested, molded, and broken — all under Makima’s unflinching gaze.

Bomb Girl Arc

Peace never lingers long in Makima’s world. Even when the sun shone on quiet streets and Denji thought life had given him a chance to be ordinary, danger was already waiting with a smile.

That danger came in the shape of a girl — Reze. Sweet laughter, tender glances, a warmth Denji had never truly felt. For the first time, the boy who lived as a dog on someone else’s leash tasted the idea of freedom. Reze was everything he thought love could be. But in the world Makima ruled, tenderness is just a mask before the knife sinks in.

Reze was no ordinary girl. She was the Bomb Devil — a weapon wrapped in beauty, a kiss hiding detonation. When her truth ignited, blood and fire swallowed the streets. Denji, torn between desire and duty, was once again thrust into a war not his own, his heart breaking with every explosion.

And yet, as Reze struggled between the life she had and the life she wanted, Makima’s shadow crept in. While Denji wrestled with love and betrayal, Makima’s eyes stayed fixed on the bigger picture. She didn’t rage. She didn’t despair. She waited. She always waited.

Because Makima knew that love — like every other human weakness — was something she could use. And when the bombs finally went silent, when the echoes of Reze’s laughter faded into smoke, Denji’s heart was left wide open. Vulnerable. Exactly where Makima wanted it.

International Assassins Arc

By now, Makima wasn’t just a shadow over Division 4 — she was the storm itself.
Word of Chainsaw Man’s existence had slipped across borders, and soon the world’s predators closed in. From China, the U.S., the Soviet Union — killers, devils, hybrids, each sharpened by fear and greed — they all came to claim the boy with the saws in his chest.

But Makima? She welcomed it.
To her, the assassins weren’t threats; they were pawns, unwitting offerings to the stage she was setting. She let chaos churn — blades clashing, bodies breaking, devils screaming — because in the fire of that chaos, Denji’s fate was being forged exactly as she intended.

Makima did not need to fight. She only needed to guide. With a word, with a glance, she shifted the board, letting others slaughter each other while Chainsaw Man was pushed to evolve, suffer, and bleed. Every assassin who fell wasn’t just a corpse — they were another chain tightening around Denji’s soul.

And above it all, Makima smiled her quiet smile. Not the smile of kindness, but of certainty. She wasn’t reacting to the world. The world was reacting to her.

Gun Devil Arc

The Gun Devil was no myth. No whisper. It was terror incarnate, a wound carved into human history.
And when the moment came to hunt it, Makima turned the impossible into ritual.

She did not cower before humanity’s greatest fear. She stood tall, commanding the battlefield with an authority that felt less human than divine. Every order was precise, every sacrifice calculated. When Denji and Division 4 fought under her shadow, it wasn’t just against the Gun Devil — it was under Makima’s gaze, bound by the weight of inevitability.

And then the veil began to slip. The Gun Devil’s rampage, its horrific possession, the massacre it unleashed — all of it led to one truth: Makima wasn’t humanity’s savior. She was something far more terrifying. A being not of salvation, but of control.

By the time the dust settled, one thing was clear:
The Gun Devil wasn’t the end.
Makima was.

Control Devil Arc

Makima was never a devil hunter.
She was the Devil that hunted humans.

Every moment — from the Sea Cucumber Devil to the assassins, from promises whispered to Denji to warnings disguised as mercy — had been scaffolding. A tower built not for safety, but for dominion. And now, in the Control Devil Arc, the scaffolding came crashing down to reveal the cathedral beneath: Makima’s true nature.

Control.
Not just over devils. Not just over humans. But over meaning itself.

Her chains reached beyond flesh, beyond power. She was the weight in a bowed head, the leash in loyalty disguised as love, the invisible hand that made “choice” into theater. To follow Makima was never to follow freely — it was to be rewritten by her presence. Aki, Power, Denji… none of them were spared. She broke them not with hate, but with affection, twisting intimacy into obedience.

And yet, that was the horror: she believed it was love.
Her control wasn’t painted in blood, but in kindness. In dinners shared, in promises of touch, in the warmth of a family that never was. Her chains were soft, silken — until you realized they strangled just the same.

When Aki fell, he didn’t just die. He became her puppet, a weapon against Denji, a final proof that there was no escape from her gravity.
When Power was slaughtered, it wasn’t rage Makima gave Denji — it was despair, folded neatly into inevitability.

This was Makima’s philosophy: that freedom is chaos, and chaos must be tamed. That love and obedience are not separate, but the same. She wasn’t the villain in her own eyes. She was the cure for a sick world — and Denji was the vessel she would sculpt into salvation.

But in the silence after every chain rattled, a truth pulsed louder:
Makima was not love.
Makima was loneliness.
A being so desperate to be understood that she bent the world to fit her definition of family.

And that was her tragedy. The Control Devil could command everything, everyone — except the one thing she wanted most: a genuine bond unshackled by fear.

The Fall of Makima — Control’s Last Symphony

Control can command obedience. Control can simulate love. But control cannot give birth to freedom.

That is why Makima lost.

Her tragedy was never that she was defeated by Denji — it was that she was incapable of being loved in the way she desired. Her entire philosophy was a paradox stitched together with chains: to create family by stripping it of choice, to cultivate loyalty by pruning freedom, to replace the mess of intimacy with the predictability of obedience.

For Makima, love was control.
For Denji, love was chaos.

And so, when Denji outwitted her — not as Chainsaw Man, not as a devil hunter, but as a boy who loved in his own clumsy, flawed way — her entire cathedral of dominance collapsed. The most terrifying devil in Japan was not slain by brute force, but by the quiet rebellion of free will.

Power could be crushed. Aki could be remade. Humanity could be manipulated.
But Denji — Denji could choose.

And he chose to love her in the most human, terrifyingly free way possible: not as the goddess she pretended to be, but as Makima the woman. He broke her spell not with worship, but with betrayal; not with chains, but with teeth.

Her death was grotesque, intimate, almost tender — the same tenderness she once used to ensnare him. Piece by piece, he consumed her, not out of hatred, but out of a desperate desire to understand, to own her in the only way she could never control: by turning her into part of himself.

That is where the philosophy of control collapses.
You can dominate bodies, words, actions — but you cannot dominate the freedom of interpretation. You cannot dictate what love means to someone else. Makima tried to orchestrate a family of puppets. Denji gave her something closer to truth — messy, brutal, and irrevocably free.

Makima’s end wasn’t just a victory.
It was an exorcism.
The world was freed from her vision of order. Denji was freed from her silken chains. And Makima herself was freed from the prison of her own loneliness, though not in the way she had hoped.

Makima’s arc is more than just a story of devils and hunters — it is a haunting meditation on control, love, and the human need for freedom. Her fall is not just the end of a villain, but the unraveling of an idea: that domination can ever replace genuine connection. As the echoes of her influence fade, Chainsaw Man reminds us that true strength lies not in control, but in choice.

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