The strongest Chainsaw Man characters are almost all Primal Fear Devils, the handful of devils born from fears every human on Earth shares — and Part 2 of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga, which ended with Chapter 232 on March 24, 2026, closed with the hierarchy clearer than it had ever been. This ranking covers the full manga through Part 2’s ending and Volume 24, which collected Part 2’s final chapters and released in Japan on June 4, 2026, before an unannounced Part 3. English volumes are published by VIZ Media.
Last updated: September 3, 2026.
Primal Fear Devils, Explained
Chainsaw Man’s power scale runs on one rule: a devil’s strength is tied directly to how widely and how deeply humans fear the concept it represents. A Primal Fear is a fear shared by every human being on Earth regardless of era or culture — death, war, famine, control by an unseen force. Devils born from those fears start each story arc stronger than almost anything else in the setting, which is why this list is dominated by them rather than by the human cast — it is also a big part of why Chainsaw Man consistently places on our list of the best manga of all time.
Chainsaw Devil (Pochita)
Pochita is the devil formed from the fear of the chainsaw, and its defining power is unique among every devil shown in the series: it can consume a devil and erase both that devil and the concept it represents from existence permanently, not just kill it. Makima herself, the series’ primary antagonist for all of Part 1, spends the entire story trying to capture Pochita specifically because nothing else in the setting can do what it does.
Makima (Control Devil)
Makima is the Control Devil, one of the Four Horsemen, and her power lets her force obedience from any human or devil she has judged to be “beneath” her — which, given how she defines the hierarchy, is nearly everyone. Her real threat was never a single attack; it was that by the time most characters realized what she was, she had already spent the entire story arranging their deaths in advance.
Yoru (War Devil)
Yoru is the War Devil, another of the Four Horsemen, and spends Part 2 possessing protagonist Asa Mitaka’s body while trying to become independent of a human host. War Devils can transform anything — objects, people, even parts of a city — into weapons, and Yoru grows measurably stronger across Part 2 as world conflict escalates, since War feeds directly on the state of the real world.
Fami (Famine Devil)
Fami is the Famine Devil, the third of the Four Horsemen introduced on-page, and her power is built around manipulation and hunger for connection rather than brute force — she can erase a person’s existence by having enough people simultaneously “consume” the idea of them. She spends most of Part 2 maneuvering other characters into position rather than fighting directly, which is consistent with how famine actually operates: slowly, and through control of resources rather than open conflict.
Death Devil
The Death Devil is the last of the Four Horsemen and, true to the concept she embodies, is barely shown fighting directly in the manga at all — her power is so consistently treated as inevitable that the story rarely stages an actual confrontation with her. Fan power-scaling discussions generally treat her as tied with or above Famine, precisely because so little of her true capability has been put on the page.
Denji (Chainsaw Man)
Denji is the human host of Pochita, and his own combat power comes with a hard cost the Primal Fears don’t share: transforming and fighting as Chainsaw Man burns through his own blood, so his practical power ceiling is limited by how much of himself he is willing to spend. His strongest verified feat is still defeating the Gun Devil, one of the deadliest devils in the setting’s history, in Part 1 — see our Chainsaw Man reading order for exactly where that fight lands if you are catching up.
Power (Blood Fiend)
Power is a Blood Fiend, formed from the corpse of a lesser Blood Devil, and her manipulation of blood — her own and others’ — makes her one of the strongest non-Primal-Fear characters in the series. She is also the clearest example in the cast of a fiend whose bond with a human (Denji) directly increases her combat reliability over the course of the story.
Asa Mitaka
Asa Mitaka is Part 2’s human protagonist and the War Devil Yoru’s reluctant host. On her own she starts as one of the weakest named characters in the cast, but her arc is built entirely around learning to negotiate with Yoru for partial access to War’s power without losing control of her own body — which, by the end of Part 2, makes her meaningfully stronger than she is ever given credit for.
Chainsaw Man Power Comparison Table
| Character | Type | Signature Power | Best-Known Feat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pochita / Chainsaw Devil | Primal Fear (Chainsaw) | Erases devils and their concept from existence | The reason Makima spent all of Part 1 hunting one devil specifically |
| Makima | Primal Fear (Control) | Forces obedience from anything she outranks | Orchestrated Part 1’s ending years in advance |
| Yoru | Primal Fear (War) | Transforms objects and people into weapons | Grows stronger as real-world conflict escalates through Part 2 |
| Fami | Primal Fear (Famine) | Erases people through mass ‘consumption’ of their existence | Manipulated multiple factions into position without direct combat |
| Death Devil | Primal Fear (Death) | Unknown — almost never shown fighting | Treated as inevitable rather than opposable |
| Denji | Human host of Pochita | Chainsaw transformation, fueled by his own blood | Defeated the Gun Devil in Part 1 |
Original Analysis: Why Part 2 Deliberately Kept Its Strongest Devil Offscreen
The Death Devil is the clearest example of a pattern Fujimoto uses across both parts of Chainsaw Man: the scarier the concept, the less the manga actually shows it doing anything. Pochita’s full power was withheld until the final arc of Part 1. Fami spent most of Part 2 manipulating events from a distance rather than fighting. The Death Devil goes further than either — she barely appears on-page at all. That is not a gap in the story; it is the same logic the Primal Fear system runs on applied to the writing itself. A fear stays primal only as long as it stays abstract, so the moment the manga gives death a concrete combat feat, it stops being unbeatable and starts being a character with a stat line. Fujimoto’s reluctance to do that for Death, even after doing it for every other Horseman, is the strongest in-text argument that she is being held in reserve for whatever Part 3 turns out to be. It’s the same trick One Punch Man uses with Blast — see our breakdown of the strongest One Punch Man characters for the other side of that comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the strongest character in Chainsaw Man?
The Chainsaw Devil (Pochita) is generally considered the strongest confirmed devil in Chainsaw Man, since its power to erase other devils and their concepts from existence has no shown counter. Among the Four Horsemen, the Death Devil is the most powerful by reputation, though the manga has shown the least of her actual combat ability.
Is Makima stronger than Pochita?
No. Makima, the Control Devil, spends the entirety of Part 1 trying to capture Pochita specifically because its erasure power is the one thing in the setting she cannot out-scheme or dominate through control.
Did Chainsaw Man’s manga end with Part 2?
Part 2 (the Academy Saga) ended with Chapter 232 on March 24, 2026, as confirmed by Anime Corner, and Volume 24 collecting it released in Japan on June 4, 2026. A Part 3 is widely expected but had not been officially announced as of this writing.
Who is the War Devil in Chainsaw Man?
Yoru is the War Devil, one of the Four Horsemen, who spends Part 2 possessing protagonist Asa Mitaka’s body while trying to become fully independent of a human host.
