Chainsaw Man's Death Devil may be the weakest Primal Fear Devil yet, and Makima already explained why

Modified Sep 15, 2024 06:30 GMT

As Part 2 of author and illustrator Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man manga series progresses through what appears to be its climax, readers are curious to see if the Death Devil will appear. The series’ current events take place roughly 6 months before Nostradamus’ prophecy is meant to come true, yet Part 2 seems to be rapidly approaching its end based on a similar pacing to Part 1.

Likewise, fans are scouring the Chainsaw Man manga’s Academy saga for each and every clue that has been given so far about the final and most powerful of the Four Horsemen Devils. In turn, this has also led to many recent fan theories on the Death Devil, such as who she is if she’s already appeared, what her goals are, and what her powers and abilities may be.

Understandably, given Death’s shared status as one of the Four Horsemen Devils and a Primal Fear Devil, many assume her to be the strongest Devil in the series, period. However, an often-forgotten line from Makima in Chainsaw Man’s Public Safety Saga may actually set her up as the strongest of the Four Horsemen but the weakest of the Primal Fears.

Chainsaw Man’s “Four Conclusions” Devils may tease Death Devil being the weakest Primal Fear

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In Chainsaw Man chapter 84, Control Devil Makima speaks with Kishibe and reveals Pochita’s ability to erase the Devils he eats and the concepts they represent from existence. She names several erased events, groups, and more that used to exist but now don’t, explaining that her status as a Four Horsemen Devil lets her remember them. She mentions that there once were “four possible conclusions other than death at the end of living beings’ life spans.”

In other words, she essentially confirms that at one point, humans and every other creature on Earth had some sort of “afterlife,” for lack of a better term given current information, other than death. Thus, it’s surely true that death was not as feared as it may currently be by the living beings of the series’ world prior to Pochita erasing the Devil(s), which represented these four other conclusions.

In turn, this suggests that Death is one of the weaker Primal Fear Devils if, like in our own world, chainsaws were not invented until the 1780s, and Pochita truly is the Chainsaw Devil. If this is the case, Pochita has only been alive for roughly 200 years in Chainsaw Man’s world. This further means that the Devil(s), which represent these four other conclusions, were only erased sometime in the last 200-plus years.

In other words, death has only been the sole conclusion “at the end of living beings’ life spans” for the last 200-plus years. Contrarily, fears like darkness, falling, and aging (all of whom have representative Devils in-series) have existed since the dawn of humanity at worst and the dawn of “living beings” at best.

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With this in mind, it seems incredibly unlikely that Death can be one of the stronger Primal Fear Devils, let alone the strongest overall. This seems especially likely since Primal Devils are described as being “particularly ancient” according to the series’ unofficial wiki. While Death would certainly qualify as being “particularly ancient,” her having to share the fear living beings had for their lives ending with the Four Conclusions Devil(s) likely weakened her strength.

One can argue that the Death Devil may have been able to match up to the other Primal Devils by nature of being the sole option when living beings die for the last 200-plus years. Like how War Devil Yoru got an immediate boost of power from the return of war to the world, Death may have received a similar boost in strength. Yet while Yoru’s strength boost was impressive, she was almost killed by Pochita in Chainsaw Man chapter 176 before weaponizing Gun and Tank.

This likewise suggests that any boost in strength Death got from Pochita eating the Four Conclusions Devil(s) was negligible in comparison to the other Primal Fear Devil’s strengths. However, this is all speculative as of this article’s writing and may be addressed by Fujimoto once Death makes her debut. Yet, with the current information fans have, there’s a very real chance that Death may be the weakest Primal Devil, even if she is the strongest Horseman.