Years after the first part of Chainsaw Man ended, one character still dominates fan discussions, theories and memes: Makima. She is the calm, smiling boss who rescues Denji from a life of debt and garbage, and she turns out to be the Control Devil, the architect of almost every tragedy in the story. Many villains are remembered for their power. Makima is remembered because readers keep arguing about who she really was. What makes her so fascinating, and why is the Control Devil still the most talked-about villain in Chainsaw Man? Let’s break it down.
Who Is Makima?
Makima first appears in Chapter 1 as the head of Public Safety’s special devil hunter division. She offers Denji food, a job and a roof over his head, on the condition that he becomes her “dog.” For a boy who has never had anything, she looks like salvation.
The truth comes out late in Part 1: Makima is the Control Devil, one of the Four Horsemen, and her power is built on humanity’s fear of being controlled. Her abilities are terrifying:
- Control: She can dominate anyone she regards as beneath her, turning people and devils into obedient tools.
- The contract: Through a deal with the Prime Minister of Japan, any fatal attack on her is converted into an illness or accident striking a random Japanese citizen. In practice, she cannot be killed.
- Ears everywhere: She can listen through small animals and keep track of conversations almost anywhere.
- Her true target: Everything she does is aimed at Pochita, the Chainsaw Devil living inside Denji.
Reason 1: A Villain Hiding in Plain Sight
What makes Makima unsettling is that her control is mostly personal. She does not rule through speeches or armies. She works on one person at a time, and many readers say she reminds them of real manipulators they have met.
- Owning the “firsts”: Denji has almost no life experience, so every first, from a kiss to a date, leaves a huge mark. Makima makes sure the most memorable firsts are hers.
- A family built to be broken: She places Denji with Aki and Power, lets him experience a real home, and then takes it apart piece by piece.
- The emotional roller coaster: After Aki’s death, she soothes Denji with warmth and her dogs, then kills Power in front of him. In that shattered state, she tells him he is responsible for everything and gets him to agree, so the curse sounds like his own conclusion.
This is why the reveal hits so hard. Looking back, every kind gesture was a step in a plan.
Reason 2: A Goal That Almost Sounds Good
Makima’s plan is not simply world domination. She wants to control Chainsaw Man, whose power can erase whatever he eats from existence, and use it to delete the things that make people suffer: death, war, hunger, and even bad movies. Her vision is a world without fear.
That is why fans still argue about whether she was a monster or a twisted idealist:
- The appeal: No death, no war, no starvation. On paper, it sounds like paradise.
- The cost: A world without death could mean endless overpopulation and lives without urgency or meaning, and it would be a world shaped entirely by one being’s taste.
- The method: Even if the goal were noble, she gets there by treating every human being as a disposable piece on a board.
Reason 3: The Loneliness Behind Control
The ending reveals the most painful layer. What Makima truly wanted was an equal relationship, something like a family. But as the Control Devil she can only relate to others by commanding them. Every bond she forms turns into ownership, like a cursed King Midas who turns everyone she touches into a puppet instead of gold.
Some fans add that she was controlled too. Public Safety used her as a weapon and kept her on a leash, so the only relationships she ever knew were orders given and orders followed. Her love of cinema fits this reading: she watches films to study human emotion from the outside. The moment she cries during the last movie of her date with Denji is one of the few times her mask seems to slip.
Reason 4: She Never Really Saw Denji
One of the most popular readings focuses on Makima’s gaze. She recognises people by smell, not by their faces. The only being she truly looked at was Chainsaw Man, and even then she loved an image, the hero of hell she had admired like a devoted fan. She keeps telling Denji what Chainsaw Man would or would not do, trying to fix him into that image.
Denji eventually realizes she only remembers the scent of those she cares about, and that she has never been looking at him at all, only at Chainsaw Man. That blind spot is exactly how he wins.
The Ending That Keeps the Debate Alive
Because her contract turns any attack into someone else’s death, Denji defeats her in the only way it cannot cover: he eats her (Chapter 96). As he explains, it is not an attack. It is love, becoming one with the woman he loved. It is grotesque, darkly funny and strangely tender at once, and fans have never stopped arguing about what it means.
Then comes the twist. Devils are reborn, and the Control Devil returns as a little girl named Nayuta (Chapter 97). Kishibe brings her to Denji and asks him to raise her with love, in the hope that a Control Devil who receives affection instead of orders might grow up differently. Makima’s story ends not with a funeral but with an open question about nature and nurture.
Why She Still Dominates the Conversation
Makima works on every level: as a horror villain, as a portrait of real-life manipulation, as a tragic being who wanted love but could only give orders, and as the center of one of manga’s most bizarre endings. The anime’s first season in 2022 and the Reze Arc film in 2025 brought her to a new wave of fans, and each new viewer seems to arrive at a different answer about who she was.
Conclusion
Makima is still the most talked-about villain in Chainsaw Man because she cannot be reduced to one thing. She is a manipulator, an idealist, a weapon of the state and a lonely devil who never learned how to be loved without controlling. Was Makima pure evil, or the most tragic character in the whole series?
