STORY ARCS

Arc 1: Introduction & Public Safety Arc

The story begins with a dream — a quiet morning, the crunch of gravel, and Denji walking toward an old shed. A rusted door waits ahead. He opens it. Inside, darkness breathes.

Then reality intrudes. Denji wakes up in a filthy shack, morning light filtered through cracks in the wall. His body aches. He sells parts of himself — an eye, a kidney — to chip away at the mountain of debt left by his father. The collectors are yakuza, and they don’t care if they bleed him dry.

His only friend in the world is Pochita, a tiny devil shaped like a dog with a chainsaw blade protruding from its head. They hunt devils together. Denji swings an axe while Pochita cuts through flesh and bone. The money is pitiful, but it keeps them alive — barely. Denji dreams of things most people take for granted: jam on bread, a warm bed, maybe a girlfriend to share it with.

One night, the yakuza order him to a derelict warehouse. He arrives, tension gnawing at him. The yakuza stand strangely still, eyes glassy. Then the truth drops: they’ve made a deal with the Zombie Devil, and Denji is the offering. The mobsters, now rotting, mindless husks, rush him. Knives plunge into his body. Limbs are hacked away. They dump him and Pochita into a dumpster, leaving them in pieces.

Inside the black haze of death, Denji hears Pochita’s voice — gentle, loyal. The little devil makes him an offer: “Let me live in your heart... and show me your dreams.”

When Denji wakes, there’s a pull-cord on his chest. The zombies close in. He yanks it.

Engines roar. Chainsaw blades explode from his skull and forearms. The warehouse fills with the deafening sound of metal on flesh as Denji rips through the horde, blood soaking the concrete. He cuts the Zombie Devil into twitching chunks.

When silence finally falls, the smell of blood still hangs heavy. That’s when she appears — Makima. A tall woman in a Public Safety uniform, her voice soft yet commanding. She approaches, kneels, and looks Denji in the eyes.

“You have two choices. One: be killed by me; Two: become my pet.”

Denji, still trembling, sees something in her face — safety, warmth. Maybe even kindness. He chooses life. Makima wraps him in her coat and takes him away, marking the start of his life as a Public Safety Devil Hunter.

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Arc 2: Bat Devil Arc

Denji’s introduction to Public Safety is rocky. Makima places him under Aki Hayakawa, a stern, disciplined hunter who clearly resents the newcomer. Aki warns Denji that devil hunting isn’t for dreamers. Denji responds by kicking him in the groin — repeatedly.

Aki’s frustration grows when Makima assigns another wildcard to their squad: Power, the Blood Fiend. She’s impulsive, arrogant, and unpredictable. Her sharp teeth flash when she grins. She doesn’t follow orders.

One afternoon, Power approaches Denji with a proposal. Her beloved cat, Meowy, has been kidnapped by the Bat Devil. If Denji helps her rescue it, she’ll let him touch her chest. Denji, driven by both curiosity and empathy, agrees.

They travel to the outskirts of the city, to a desolate house where Power suddenly knocks Denji unconscious. She drags him to the Bat Devil — a giant, leathery-skinned monster with gaping jaws. Her plan is to trade Denji’s life for Meowy’s freedom.

But the Bat Devil rejects the bargain. It swallows Meowy — cage and all — and then Power. Denji wakes to the sounds of muffled screaming from inside the beast. Something shifts in him. Pulling his cord, he transforms and launches at the Bat Devil. The fight is a whirlwind of shattered walls, broken glass, and blood spraying into the streets.

When the Bat Devil falls, Denji has only a moment to breathe before the Leech Devil attacks — grotesque and worm-like, with a mouthful of fangs. His chainsaws sputter out mid-fight, leaving him vulnerable. At the last moment, Aki arrives, summoning the Fox Devil to bite the Leech Devil in half.

In the aftermath, something changes. Power, once dismissive, seems to view Denji as a genuine ally. She even honors her promise — awkwardly, clumsily — and Denji learns that sometimes the reward doesn’t live up to the fantasy. But the trio’s bond begins to take root.

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Arc 3: Eternity Devil Arc

Public Safety assigns the team a new mission: eliminate the Eternity Devil in a hotel. They enter with additional hunters, including Himeno, Aki’s partner, and the nervous newcomer Kobeni Higashiyama.

But the moment they reach the 8th floor, they realize they’re trapped. Every hallway loops back on itself. The windows look out onto solid walls. Hours pass. Paranoia grows. The Eternity Devil offers a deal: kill Denji, and it will let them go.

Fear and desperation make tempers flare. Kobeni, trembling and crying, nearly attacks Denji. Himeno tries to keep the group together, but tension frays at every edge. Denji, strangely unfazed, suspects the devil is afraid of him.

He makes a decision: if it wants his heart, it’s going to work for it. He dives into its gaping maw, revs his chainsaws, and begins hacking. The fight stretches on for hours. Denji refuses to stop, his insane stamina grinding the Eternity Devil down until it finally begs for death.

It’s a victory, but a grim one. The hotel’s corridors fall silent as the devil’s remains dissolve. In this claustrophobic crucible, the trio’s trust in each other solidifies — not as friends, but as survivors bound by shared madness.

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Arc 4: Katana Man Arc

Life in Public Safety resumes, but the calm doesn’t last. During a quiet day in the city, coordinated attacks erupt. Hunters across Tokyo are ambushed.

Denji and Himeno are confronted by Katana Man, a devil-human hybrid like Denji, but with katana blades jutting from his head and arms. Alongside him is a mysterious woman controlling the Snake Devil. The ambush is swift and devastating. Katana Man’s speed and precision cut through Denji’s defenses.

In another part of the city, Makima is shot in the head during a train ride — but she rises, unharmed, her powers killing the attackers in ways both unseen and horrifying.

Back at the battlefield, Himeno realizes the only way to save Aki is to sacrifice herself. She gives her entire body to the Ghost Devil in exchange for its full power. The Ghost Devil strangles Katana Man, but before it can finish him, the Snake Devil devours it — and Himeno’s body crumbles to nothing.

The loss devastates Aki. His grief festers into something sharper: resolve. Denji and Power are placed under the brutal training of Kishibe, a veteran hunter who kills them repeatedly during sparring to make them stronger.

The arc ends with a rematch against Katana Man. This time, Denji fights dirty, using his unpredictability to win. Katana Man is captured, and Aki and Denji share a quiet, darkly comedic moment over their prisoner. But the victory is hollow. The cost of survival keeps climbing.

In a quiet post-credits scene, Denji dreams of a door — old, wooden, closed. A voice warns him never to open it. And then, in the waking world, he meets a girl named Reze.

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Arc 5: Reze Arc (Bomb Girl Arc)

After the chaos of the Katana Man incident, Denji’s life briefly slows. He frequents a small café, where he meets Reze — a cheerful, magnetic girl with short dark hair and a playful smile. She flirts openly, laughing at Denji’s awkwardness. For the first time, someone seems to like him without manipulation or ulterior motives.

They spend time together: swimming at night, joking over coffee, sharing moments that feel almost normal. Denji, used to violence and exploitation, starts to believe in the possibility of a simple, happy life.

But Reze isn’t who she seems. She’s a Soviet assassin, a human-devil hybrid bonded with the Bomb Devil. Her mission is to capture Denji’s Chainsaw Man heart. The truth comes in a sudden, violent explosion. One moment they’re flirting in an alley; the next, she transforms, her head splitting open into a flower-shaped array of explosives. The blast tears through the city.

What follows is a running battle — through streets, buildings, and into the sea. Reze is a whirlwind of speed and precision, detonating herself and regenerating instantly. Denji struggles to keep up, both physically and emotionally. Their fights are brutal, their banter tinged with something tragic: beneath the mission, they genuinely like each other.

In the end, Reze defeats him but can’t bring herself to kill him. She tells him to meet her at the café, hinting they could run away together. Denji waits, hopeful.

Reze starts toward the café... but Makima intercepts her. What happens is left unsaid, but the implication is clear: Reze never makes it.

The final panels are cruel in their quietness. Denji sits in the café, waiting, unaware that the girl who made him believe in love is gone. The world outside moves on, uncaring.

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CHARACTERS

Denji—Chainsaw Man

• Personality

  • Denji is both brash and naïve as a result of being unable to have a formal education and socialize due to living in severe poverty, making him generally crass and vulgar. His personality comes off as rude and harsh in an almost childish way. However, he has a good sense of empathy towards other people, willing to save those in danger as much as he could, showing he is a kind-hearted person despite his shortcomings. While Denji doesn't necessarily possess the highest intelligence, he is capable of clever ideas to take down Devils
  • After becoming a Public Safety Devil Hunter and fulfilling his basic needs, Denji is unsure of what he wants in life. Many of Denji's said basic needs were fueled by sexual desire, going so far as to accept dangerous missions in exchange for some form of sexual gratification. One such case was feeling up Power in exchange for rescuing her cat, however, he later realized and laments that the satisfaction from such intimate acts is fleeting. Denji also harbors a fear that his seeming lack of empathy and attachment after his transformation is a sign that he is losing his sense of humanity.
  • While transformed into his Hybrid form, Denji becomes extremely ruthless, aggressive, bloodthirsty and sadistic, releasing his most deranged side while facing other Devils, to the point of enjoying killing them. He also displays a twisted and sarcastic sense of humor. The first time he transformed into his Hybrid form he found it amusing that he could pay off his debt by killing all the Yakuza members who were turned into zombies due to the power of the Zombie Devil. While facing the Eternity Devil he says that "its blood tastes like rat but drinking it while watching a son of a bitch suffering and feeling terrified makes it taste as delicious as a strawberry jam", and considers himself a genius for creating a "perpetual motion machine" worthy enough of a Nobel Prize. Later, when the Spear Hybrid has Denji pinned down, he bisects both himself and the hybrid behind him before crawling over to him, cutting his head off, and thanking him for the food while holding said head.

• Appearance

  • Denji is a fair-skinned teenage boy with scruffy blond hair that has strands sticking up and falling messily around his head. He has yellow-brown eyes and bags underneath, resulting in a dazed and tired expression. His teeth are noticeably sharp and angular. Due to malnutrition in his childhood, he has a scrawny and undernourished build with protruding ribs, relatively long-looking, almost lanky legs, and slim wrists, and due to the stress of what he did for a living, he’s often mistaken for being older than he actually is.
  • After Denji forms a contract with Pochita, his heart is fused with Pochita, a chainsaw cord forms in the middle of his sternum and he regains his lost organs along with having a muscular, albeit still lanky build.
  • He spent much of his time wearing the standard Public Safety Devil Hunter uniform, consisting of a white shirt, tie, and slacks. He wore the uniform carelessly, his shirt wrinkled and sleeves rolled up.
  • If his chainsaw cord is pulled while he has enough blood for the transformation, then his head will morph into a demonic, mechanical shape with long, jagged fangs and a chainsaw handle on the back. Large chainsaws will emerge from his forehead, arms and legs, he is able to retract and extend any of them at will. If Denji's chainsaw cord is pulled while he does not have enough blood, then a chainsaw blade will partially emerge from his face.

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Makima

• Personality**

  • Cunning and manipulative. On the surface, Makima seems to be a kind, gentle, social and friendly woman who is usually seen wearing a smile on her face the entire time and acts relaxed and confident even during a crisis, speaking in a professional tone to her workers. As her natural appearance is nearly identical to that of a human, she avoids disclosing her Devil nature to most of her underlings and spends much of the series posing as a human contracted to a Devil rather than a Devil herself. However, this is only a facade that she uses to fulfill her ultimate goal. After the death of Aki Hayakawa, Makima begins to reveal her true colors to Denji. Makima's true face is of someone that is Machiavellian and calculating, who sees people around her as nothing more than "dogs" she can use as much as she likes and must obey her without any hesitation. Makima has demonstrated herself to be extremely cunning, cold and manipulative as she controls Denji through the promises of a romantic and sexual relationship while also threatening him with outright extermination if he disobeys her. Ruthless and normally dispassionate, she will do whatever it takes to reach her goals, even at the cost of the people she should be protecting.
  • Makima also admits that she is not a good person and deems herself as "necessary evil"; a weapon under control of the Japanese government, just like Gun Devil which is under the control of the American government. She is not afraid of her plans derailing, since whether her plans fail or succeed, she will almost always achieve something she wants. Makima is an extreme fan of Chainsaw Man, the "Hero of Hell". Fascinated by its ability to wipe out the embodied concept of a Devil through consuming them, her stated goal is to bring Chainsaw Man under her control in order to use its abilities to create an ideal world without fear, death, and “bad” movies. However, failure is also acceptable, as it would mean being eaten—an honor according to her. She yearns for something like a family, and would do anything to take the Chainsaw Devil away from Denji. She believes that Chainsaw shouldn't even be beating in - or with - Denji. The "Hero of Hell" is Makima's no. 1 goal to get.

• Appearance

  • Makima is a beautiful voluptuous woman who appears to be in her mid-twenties. Her hair colour is a light red, normally kept in a loose braid with bangs reaching just past her eyebrows and two longer side bangs that frame her face. Her eyes are yellow with multiple red rings within them. Wore the Public Safety uniform: A suit and tie. Sometimes wears a black blazer or trenchcoat when heading out.

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Aki Hayakawa

• Personality

  • Aki generally appeared to be a very stoic man who acted mature and sometimes blunt to the point of rudeness when he was with his fellow Devil Hunters, but he was actually fairly soft-hearted. He had a tendency to get attached to others easily, and hated to see people get hurt, especially his close friends.

• Appearance

  • Aki is a young man with medium-length black hair that he usually wore in a topknot style (shoulder-length with long bangs when untied) and blue eyes. He often wore the Public Safety Devil Hunter uniform; a suit and tie. He also donned black earrings and usually carried his sword on his back.

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Himeno

• Personality

  • Himeno is very self-sacrificing and will usually put the lives of others over her own self. Himeno has an affinity for drinking and smoking as she's usually seen smoking cigarettes as form of a stress-reliever. Himeno was shown to be a mature and experienced superior to the new recruits working under her. She generally carries herself with upbeat body language and was capable of staying calm under extremely stressful situations, such as the initial phase of her group's battle against the Eternity Devil. Himeno motivated Denji by offering him a french kiss, implying that she's at least somewhat perceptive of the people around her and was willing to take unorthodox approaches in order to ensure the best possible results from him.

• Appearance

  • Himeno is a fair-skinned voluptuous adult woman slightly above average height with short, smooth, and slightly unkempt shoulder-length black hair and an eyepatch covering her right eye. Himeno was a very tall, voluptuous and beautiful young woman, with turquoise-colored eyes where she wore a black eyepatch over her right eye.
  • She was usually seen wearing her suit with a black tie.

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Kobeni Higashiyama

• Personality

  • Kobeni is a very shy and cowardly individual, especially in situations against devils. Kobeni is generally demure, soft spoken, and often anxious. She is exceptionally cowardly with few moments of courage. Her first confrontation with the Eternity Devil leads to her being paralyzed with fright and babbling. She is shown to easily crack under pressure and breaks down in tears when the group becomes trapped in the hotel and she is confronted with the possibility of them all starving to death without any rescue. Her fear can also make her remarkably clumsy.

• Appearance

  • Kobeni is a young woman with short brown hair (in both the anime and colored manga) that is tied in a ponytail with bangs/a shoulder-length hair strand hanging on the right side, brown eyes with white pupils and she has four moles on her face; two under her left eye, one on the lower right side of her mouth and one on her left cheek. She normally wears a professional suit and she has two red hair clips on the left side of her head.

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Power

• Personality
  • Power is a compulsive habitual liar, bratty at times. Power is childish, greedy, and almost entirely self-motivated. She tends to fight as if she has something to gain and is certain of her victory, and has no problems with running away from a fight where she is outmatched. She feels the need to boast her superiority over her fellow Devil Hunters due to her status as a Fiend. She has no loyalty to humans or Devils, openly admitting that she will join whichever is the winning side. Power also enjoys the thrill of a fight and enjoys showing off her strength and proving her own superiority. When she was in front of an swarm of zombies, she got excited and told Denji to watch carefully how she single-handedly defeats all of them. She is highly egotistical and often claims she is capable of doing things she cannot actually do, only to abandon them halfway through when the situation turns sour for her. She frequently deflects the consequences of her actions to those around her.
  • Power is a compulsive habitual liar; after getting in trouble with Makima for killing a Devil when she wasn't supposed to, Power immediately blamed Denji and claimed he told her to kill it. She also blamed Denji for eating all of the emergency food that the team collected even while she had crumbs on her face, and when accused of abandoning a fight because she was scared, Power falsely stated that she ran away merely because she was hungry.
  • Power is also rude, unkempt, and feels as though those around her should clean up after her. She self-admittedly rarely bathes or flushes the toilet and sees humans as being overly sensitive for caring about their hygiene so much.
• Appearance
  • Long, strawberry-blonde hair with angular sharp teeth, and fangs, along with little devil horns sticking out from the top of her head. Power usually wears the standard dress shirt, tie, and slacks required of Public Safety Devil Hunters. Normally, she wears breast pads to increase the size of her bust. She almost always wears her jacket hanging halfway off her body giving her an untidy, half-dressed appearance.

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Katana Man

• Personality
  • Katana Man is a selfish, cruel-hearted, stubborn, and rather unintelligent man who only cares about killing Denji and forcing him to apologize for killing his grandfather. He will sacrifice innocent people and even his own comrades to do so, being willing to cut through them just to get to Denji. He has shown a complete disbelief in Denji's excuse that he killed his grandfather because he was a zombie and accused Denji of being a liar. Despite having his physical heart replaced with the Katana Devil, Katana Man considers himself to still have a human conscience and states that he doesn't sleep well on nights where he killed a zombie, in contrast to Denji who has no guilt at all. Katana Man has a harsh distaste for religion as well, believing his grandfather's idea that religion and idiots are making the world worse.
• Appearance
  • Human Form - Katana Man is a tall man with short black hair and notable sideburns. In his debut arc, Katana Man dresses in a large leather coat with a dark military uniform underneath. During his time as one of Makima's brainwashed servants, Katana Man wore the Public Safety Devil Hunter suit and tie.
  • Hybrid Form - When Katana Man transforms, he grows large swords from each of his arms, and his face takes on a demonic appearance with dark skinless flesh and an oversized jaw devoid of lips. His chin becomes pointed, and another sword grows from his forehead where his eyes would be, with the handle sticking out of the back of his head. He also seemed to sport a navy blue military hat.

[Appears during the Katana Man arc.]

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Reze

• Personality

  • When introduced, Reze initially appears to be a kind and gentle girl who has a crush on Denji soon after meeting him, taking interest in him at first sight and was portrayed to be as somewhat enthusiastic, as shown when both Denji and her have a drink of coffee at the Café she had worked at. She is shown to be laughing at his jokes and isn't afraid to get close and intimate with him.
  • Reze is also shown to be a bit of a tantalizer, teasing Denji on some occasions, such as when she had seen how he forced himself to drink the coffee and teased him for being "such a kid," While also displaying a rather sympathetic side to her, showing her concern about Denji never attending school as a child or in his current position. She shows little respect towards the owner of the café she works at, calling him a cheapskate for docking her pay.
  • This was later revealed to be just a façade in order to get her closer to Denji; even her seemingly true reactions like blushing in his presence were results of a harsh military training that Reze was subjected to from a young age.[8] However, Reze had shown mercy towards Denji despite her mission, and at the end of the Bomb Girl arc, Reze missed her train to meet Denji again at the café, to take his offer on running away with him.
  • Despite her fake crush on Denji, Reze somewhat reciprocated his feelings towards her, and empathized with him since they had both never been to school before. Although using more manipulative type of fighting, she seems to not enjoy killing or harming others and prefers to avoid it, unless it's necessary for her mission.

• Appearance

  • Human Form - Reze appears to be a young woman or girl, and is of slender build. She has shoulder-length purple hair and emerald-green eyes. She is shown to be prone to blushing heavily. While posing as a civilian, she is seen wearing a choker in order to conceal the grenade pin in her neck, which she uses to transform. In her debut appearance, she wore a loose shirt with stylized drawing of a bell on the front, and a backpack. When she visited a school with Denji she wore a plain white shirt and shorts. While working at the café Crossroads she wears an apron.
  • Hybrid Form - As the Bomb Hybrid, Reze's transformation is that of an atomic bomb, mostly reminiscent of the Fat Man atomic bomb which exploded over Nagasaki in the last moments of the Second World War. Consistent with other hybrid transformations, her teeth are always visible and are notably sharp and angular. Bomb fuses cover her arms like sleeves while also making up a portion of her apron along with sticks of dynamite. Her clothes vary during her attempt to retrieve Denji. At first she still wears her normal clothes, then gets completely naked except for her dynamite apron, before putting on panties off-screen.

[Appears during the Reze/Bomb Girl Arc.]

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DEVILS

Chainsaw Devil (Pochita—now Denji's heart)

Control Devil (Makima)

Blood Devil (Power—now the Blood Fiend)

Gun Devil

Katana/Blade Devil (Now Katana Man's heart, making Katana Man the Katana Hybrid)

Bomb Devil (Now Reze's heart, making Reze the Bomb Hybrid)

Angel Devil

Future Devil

Curse Devil

Ghost Devil

Fox Devil

Bat Devil

Leech Devil

Sea Cucumber Devil

Eternity Devil

Darkness Devil

Violence Devil

Spider Devil (Princi)

Snake Devil

Doll Devil (Santa Claus’s contract)

Hell Devil

Falling Devil (one of the Primal Fears)

Cockroach Devil

Typhoon Devil

Skin Devil (name-dropped)

Zombie Devil (Aki’s flashback)

Tomato Devil (Denji’s first job)

Flamethrower Devil (Hybrid under Makima)

Whip Devil (Hybrid under Makima)

Spear Devil (Hybrid under Makima)

Longsword Devil (Hybrid under Makima)

Etc—more Devils based off common fears.