Chainsaw Man manga (part 1) has multiple layers to it. And believe it or not, most of these are just Makima.
I mean, once we peel off the fast paced action, and protagonist’s degeneracy oriented goals from the surface, we stumble upon a more mature and complex theme, and also a plot, which more or less hinges on Makima’s actions.
Makima should have been the brooding mystery devil for all I know.
That said, let’s turn our focus to Makima’s death. There’s multiple questions we all have regarding the character’s demise, and most of them go like this: DID MAKIMA REALLY DIE? And some go like this: DID DENJI JUST EAT MAKIMA? And then there are: HOW THE HELL DID MAKIMA DIE?
Or maybe it was just me with these questions.
She left us confused while she was alive, and she left us confused in her death. There are many things that didn’t seem to fall in place when we first witnessed the manner of Makima’s death.
We know for sure that she was untouchable and that she had a contract that shielded her from any kind of damage. So what exactly happened here? Well, the answer to the question rests in a small loophole in the very contract that acted as Makima’s shield.
Keeping that in mind, allow me to elaborate on what happened and how exactly Makima died in Chainsaw Man.
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Makima’s death explained: How did she die?
To give you the shorter version of the answer, Makima died after Denji cut her up, cooked her and ate her.
Denji took a page out of Makima’s book and cooked up (bad pun) one of the best diversions in Chainsaw Man part 1.
Tearing off a part of Pochita from his heart, he created a Chainsaw Devil to fight Makima and her lackeys. Makima succeeded in defeating this devil and took possession of Pochita.
Thinking that she had won the fight, the Control Devil lets her guard down, and that’s when Denji strikes with a chainsaw created using Power’s blood.
Since Makima was always focused on the Chainsaw Devil and never Denji, she failed to notice him and his ruse.
Once he got her, Denji proceeded to cut her up into pieces with Kishibe. The job wasn’t easy apparently as we see the veteran Devil Hunter complaining about his back later in the chapter.
After everything is said and done, Denji cooked Makima and ate her. Recipe? Anyone?
But then, if the answer is so simple, why did I hype up Makima’s death so much in the intro? For starters, Makima had a contract with the Prime Minister of Japan, which made her almost immortal.
And riding on the terms of this contract, she managed to evade being pulled into hell numerous times. If she had such a hack up her sleeve, how did Denji manage to kill Makima? Why did she not just sprout back up from the cooking pan?
Well, it was certainly not because Makima’s contract broke at a very convenient time.
This is where the complexity of Denji’s master plan kicks in and also a loophole in Makima’s contract is exposed.
Why did Denji eat Makima? How did it kill her?
Denji ate Makima because he wanted to become one with her. He did not ingest her with the intention of attacking her or killing her, but out of pure love.
This exploited a loophole in the contract that the Control Devil had with the Prime Minister of Japan. And this is precisely the reason why Makima died when Denji ate her.
According to Makima’s contract with the Prime Minister, only attacks – not her deaths, not her injuries, just attacks aimed at her – will be transferred to other people.
I am not making a random assumption here, Makima mentions all of this in chapter 84 to Kishibe.
Now, to better understand what happened, let’s split the whole process of killing Makima into two parts:
- Cutting up Makima & cooking her
- Eating Makima
The cutting up and cooking part definitely counts as an attack, and while Denji and Kishibe were at it, countless innocent people were dying thanks to Makima’s contract being in effect. Kishibe himself mentions it.
A heavy price was indeed paid in getting the control devil to the dinner table, let’s not forget that.
This proves that the contract was still active even while Makima was being cut up. The only reason she did not regenerate was because Power’s blood was messing up with her body and hindering the process.
This gave Denji and Kishibe enough time to go about their business.
Now, unlike the dismembering, the second part however, does not count as an attack on Makima at all.
As Denji himself mentions, even after everything Makima put him through, he still loved her from the bottom of his heart. He was ready to bear the burden of all her sins with her.
See, his intention was not to kill Makima, instead all he wanted was to be together with her.
Dying with her was out of the equation, as she was literally untouchable. So the only option left was to become one with her, and by cooking her up and consuming her, that’s exactly what Denji achieved.
So, even though Makima’s contract was intact, it did not work in this particular scenario because Denji eating her did not count as an attack, it was an act of love. A weird and twisted love!!
Interestingly, Denji’s feelings for Makima mirror her own obsession with Chainsaw Man, with both taking extreme measures to achieve their desired union. Taking a leaf out of her book and all, you know!
Now, Denji’s act of eating Makima, and her subsequent death has also spawned numerous other theories and questions in the fandom.
Let’s take a look at the possible repercussions of eating Makima, if there were any.
Why wasn’t the Control Devil erased?
The first and foremost misunderstanding or question that I intend to clear up is why the existence of the concept of control was not erased.
It’s common knowledge to manga readers by now that if Chainsaw Man eats a devil, their names get erased from existence. So, how did the Control Devil respawn – as Nayuta.
Well, the answer is quite simple. It was Denji who ate Makima and not the Chainsaw Devil. Being a hybrid, both Denji and the Chainsaw Devil have their own separate existence within the body.
This is evident from the fact that Makima was trying to break Denji and Pochita’s contract in order to take out the human Denji from the equation and resurrect the Chainsaw Devil.
Since it was Denji, in his human form, who consumed Makima, he only ended up killing her and not erasing her existence completely. This is the reason why the Control Devil still exists, and was reborn in the world as Nayuta.
Considering how quickly she came back to the Earth, one can’t help but wonder who killed her in hell, and that too in an incredibly short span of time (unless the concept of time varies in hell).
I would pin the responsibility of the murder on the Darkness Devil for the time being, but then, this whole discussion is for another time.
Now there are also readers who came up with theories that Makima’s death is what led to the events of Chainsaw Man part 2.
Consider how her goals involved killing off the War, Famine and Death devils, it is hard to completely ignore that assumption.
Makima could have been a counter force that kept the horsemen at bay, and now that Denji took her off the picture, he gave those three an open field to put their plans into motion.
This could probably be the reason why the War Devil made an appearance in Chainsaw Man part 2. Interestingly, Fami too has taken the initiative to bring forth Chainsaw Devil!
What are your thoughts on Makima’s death? Do you still have any nagging questions about it? Let me know all of it in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them!!
