Who is the villain of Chainsaw Man? The one holding the leash
Makima is the answer; Katana Man, Reze and Santa Claus are arc villains. Tittle explains what happens when someone controls everything and no one controls her.
Spoiler warning: this article covers the whole of the manga’s first part. The short answer is Makima. Denji’s boss at Public Safety is the antagonist of the entire first part of Chainsaw Man (chapters 1-97, 2018-2020), and the series eventually reveals that she is the Control Devil. Each arc also has its own villain: Katana Man, Reze and Santa Claus. MAPPA’s anime has reached Reze: the first season (12 episodes, 2022) ends with Katana Man, and the Reze Arc movie opened in Spanish theaters on October 24, 2025, according to Vandal, and arrived on Crunchyroll on April 30, 2026, according to Espinof. The Santa Claus arc has been announced since December 2025, with no date yet. The second part (2022-2026) is outside the scope of this article.
One scene sums it up. In chapter 81, Denji asks Makima to make his decisions for him: every bond has brought him more guilt, and he no longer wants to think. She tests him like a dog, shake, roll over, and pats his head. There is a knock at the door. Makima tells him she has invited Power over and orders him to open the door so she can kill her. Denji hesitates, then opens it. Power is standing there with a cake: the next day is Denji’s birthday. Makima points a finger at her, says “bang” and blows her apart. She has not touched anyone. All it took was Denji opening the door.
// The candidatesFour villains and a single leash
Makima: the one who controls
In chapter 84 she explains her power herself: she controls anyone she considers beneath her. She wants to defeat Chainsaw Man so she can control him and use what makes him unique, the fact that the devils he devours vanish from existence, to build a world without pain, war or death. Her case file reads her through utilitarianism.
Katana Man: the one collecting a debt
Grandson of the yakuza Denji killed in the first chapter and fused with the Katana Devil, he teams up with Akane Sawatari and with agents tied to the Gun Devil who want Denji’s heart (chapters 23-38; episodes 8-12). He is driven by the blood debt his clan taught him to collect. He ends up tied up beside a train while Denji and Aki take turns kicking him in the groin for Himeno’s death. His case file.
Reze: the one who obeys
The café girl who makes Denji fall for her is a Bomb Devil hybrid sent for his heart (chapters 39-52). In chapter 52, Kishibe explains that she came out of a Soviet military program that kidnapped orphans to turn them into soldiers. She is Makima’s reverse image: someone controlled since childhood. And her one free act, skipping the train and walking toward the café where Denji is waiting, is the moment Makima kills her. Her case file.
Santa Claus: the one who turns people into dolls
The Doll Devil’s contractor: a single touch turns a person into an obedient doll. One mind spread across many bodies, she negotiates with an envoy of the German government the job of bringing back Denji’s heart (chapters 54-70, not yet animated). She is the closest thing to Makima in the series, and it is no accident that what she asks for in Hell in exchange for that heart, through Tolka, in chapter 64, is the power to kill her. Her case file.
Makima
Read Makima’s full case file · Utilitarianism →
// The theoryTittle’s scales
In 1995, the sociologist Charles R. Tittle published Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance. His control balance theory measures each person by a ratio: the control they exercise divided by the control they are subjected to. When the ratio is balanced, conformity is most likely. When it tips, downward or upward, deviance grows, provided a provocation makes the imbalance felt and fear of counter-control does not hold it back. At the extreme deficit, Tittle placed submission; on the surplus side, exploitation, which uses others to do the dirty work, and at the very top, capricious decadence.
A contract against counter-control
For Tittle, what restrains the powerful is counter-control, the fear of what others might do to them. In chapter 84, with Kishibe holding a gun to her head, Makima explains why shooting is pointless: a deal with the Prime Minister of Japan means that every attack on her is paid for by a random Japanese citizen. It is the theory turned into a contract clause. Makima does not just control more than she is controlled: with the State’s signature, no one can strike back.
// The caseMakima at the top of the scales, Denji at the bottom
Makima is the surplus pushed to its limit, and the way she does harm fits the revised version of the theory: in 2004, Tittle concluded that the most appealing acts for someone seeking to rebalance are those with lasting effects and those that do not require facing the victim. Makima almost never gets her hands dirty. In episode 9 of the anime she takes thirty condemned prisoners, blindfolded, to a shrine: each one speaks a name and dies, and the attacker with that name is crushed. Her goal is the most lasting act imaginable, wiping entire concepts off the face of the world. On the other side of the scales, Denji does in chapter 81 exactly what Tittle expected from the extreme deficit. He does not lash out. He submits.
The ending confirms it. In chapter 97, Pochita tells Denji about Makima’s dream: to have relationships between equals, something she never achieved because the only relationships she knew were built on fear. Whoever controls everything cannot have equals. And when Kishibe leaves Nayuta, the Control Devil reborn as a little girl, in Denji’s care, he explains why he will not hand her over to the Japanese government: she would turn into Makima again. Kishibe is reasoning like Tittle. The danger lies not only in the devil, but in the position the State has ready for her.
// The crackThe scales do not pull the trigger
The theory should not be asked for more than it can give. It has been tested little, and its showiest piece, one type of act for each degree of imbalance, did not survive the data: Tittle himself withdrew it. Fiction exaggerates; the mechanism is real: power without checks breeds crime. But explaining is not excusing. The scales say which acts become tempting; they do not point the finger. Makima chose every death. That is why Denji, who cannot attack her, looks for the one way out the contract does not foresee: in chapter 96 he cuts her with a chainsaw made from Power’s blood, then cooks her and eats her. It is not an attack, he will tell Kishibe. It is love.
Makima, Chainsaw Man
She controlled everything, and that is why she could never have anyone beside her: only beneath her.
Three key ideas
- The main villain of Chainsaw Man is Makima, the Control Devil; Katana Man, Reze and Santa Claus are arc villains.
- Control balance (Tittle, 1995): Makima is the absolute surplus, shielded from counter-control by a deal with the Prime Minister; Denji is the deficit that ends in submission.
- Explaining is not excusing: the scales make abuse tempting, but Makima decided every death.
Sources · further reading
- Tittle, C. R. (1995). Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance. Westview Press.
- Tittle, C. R. (2004). “Refining Control Balance Theory”. Theoretical Criminology, 8(4).
- Fujimoto, T. (2018-2020). Chainsaw Man, part one, chapters 1-97. Shueisha.
- Vandal (September 16, 2025). Spanish theatrical release date and Spanish dub of the Reze Arc movie (in Spanish). https://vandal.elespanol.com/noticia/r36824/chainsaw-man-adelanta-su-regreso-y-confirma-su-nueva-fecha-de-estreno-en-cines-y-con-doblaje
- Espinof (April 24, 2026). Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc arrives on Crunchyroll on April 30 (in Spanish). https://www.espinof.com/anime/pelicula-chainsaw-man-tiene-fecha-estreno-streaming-pistoletazo-salida-para-mes-explosivo-que-prepara-crunchyroll
// Quick challengeWhich theory best explains Makima?
Frequently asked questions
Who is the main villain of Chainsaw Man?
Makima, Denji’s boss at Public Safety, whom the series eventually reveals as the Control Devil. She is the antagonist of the entire first part of the manga (chapters 1-97): she wants to control Chainsaw Man and use his power to erase from existence the devils he devours, remaking the world as she sees fit. Katana Man, Reze and Santa Claus are arc villains.
Is Makima evil?
Yes, even though her goal sounds noble: she says she wants a world without pain, war or death. To get there she manipulates Denji, gives him a family and takes it away, and kills Power in front of him in chapter 81. In chapter 97, Pochita reveals that her dream was to have relationships between equals, and that she never achieved it because she only knew relationships built on fear. That makes her tragic, not innocent.
How much of Chainsaw Man has the anime adapted?
MAPPA’s first season (12 episodes, aired in Japan from October to December 2022) runs through Katana Man’s defeat in chapter 38. The Reze Arc movie adapts the Bomb Girl’s story; it opened in Spanish theaters on October 24, 2025 and arrived on Crunchyroll on April 30, 2026. The International Assassins arc, Santa Claus’s arc, was announced in December 2025 and has no release date yet.
How does Makima die?
Her deal with the Prime Minister of Japan means that any attack on her is paid for by a random Japanese citizen. Denji finds the loophole: in chapter 96 he cuts her with a chainsaw made from Power’s blood and then eats her, because eating her is not an attack but, as he puts it, an act of love. The Control Devil is reborn in China as Nayuta, a little girl whom Kishibe leaves in Denji’s care.