“Any human should be capable of abandoning their morality when they're starving. I'll create the right stage for you.”
The Death Devil, known throughout the series as Kiga the Famine Devil, is the eldest member of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the main antagonist of the Academy Saga. She is the second antagonist in the series.
She poses as a high school student under the guise of the Famine Devil while also acting as the leader of the Chainsaw Man Church, all as a means to an end to make the War Devil and Chainsaw Devil supremely powerful in order to get Chainsaw Man kill her. With the concept of Death erased, the Prophecy of Nostradamus will not come true, and she will not awaken to destroy humanity. Throughout the Academy Saga she instigates many acts of chaos with the Fire Devil to get the public afraid of chainsaws and war to boost their strength.
As the Death Devil, she is able to control things she's killed and eaten as well as revive the dead. She is also able to control Devils with the names of primal fears, being the ultimate one herself.
Physical Appearance[]
Death takes on the appearance of a young woman who wears a high school uniform and a black cap from the Devil Hunter Club. She is tall, has grayish mount batten pink colored neck-length hair, and has several moles on her face. Similar to the other Horsemen, she has piercing, multiple-ringed eyes. On a colored manga cover her eyes are shown to be pink. Her ears feature four earrings, two of which are beads on her right and the other two are unusually long and have a triangular shape at the end.
Design Variants[]
In School Attacker, Death's first appearance, she wears a white jacket over her school uniform and her hat.
In Something Important to Asa, she wears a black hat mostly associated with students at Fourth East High School.
In It's Kiga! Death exposes her stomach to reveal her organs have been scooped out, showing just a black void where they were and a long incision cut through her torso.
History[]
Early History[]
At some point, the Death Devil and her sisters alongside the Weapon Devils fought against Chainsaw Man in Hell. In the midst of their final confrontation in Hell, Chainsaw Man mysteriously vanished. Despite searches conducted by the Control Devil, Pochita could not be found. Unbeknownst to the Four Horsemen, this was because Pochita had changed forms on the verge of death and escaped to Earth. Sometime after this battle, the Horsemen arrived on Earth as well, apparently parting ways.
After Pochita returns through Denji's body and is transported to Hell by the Hell Devil, Makima reveals her true intentions to Kishibe, who holds her at gunpoint after most of his squad is wiped out. She mentions that one of her main goals involves using Chainsaw Man's powers to completely erase the other three Horsemen from existence, which includes Death herself.
Due to the Prophecy of Nostradamus, it is prophesied that Death will destroy humanity, however she feels compassion for humans and wants to prevent it. Even by scooping out all her organs she is unable to die, so she orchestrates events around her little sister War and Chainsaw Man to turn them into incredibly strong Devils in order to finally die herself.
Academy Saga[]
In the "After School Devil Hunters" arc, Death, posing as the Famine Devil, makes her debut after Asa's sword attack gravely wounds Yuko. Offering to bring Yuko back to life, Death claims Asa as her little sister and performs a revival that results in Yuko becoming gigantic in size. She disappears just before Denji arrives on the scene.
During the "Infinite Aquarium" arc, Death reappears after Yuko's death, accompanied by the rest of the Devil Hunter Club. At the Tanashi Aquarium, she introduces herself as the Famine Devil and hints at her inability to turn Denji into a weapon until he loses his morality. Death suddenly disappears and traps Asa and Denji inside the aquarium.
In the subsequent "Falling Devil" arc, Yoshida, a Devil Hunter, meets with Death at a coffee shop and reveals his (incorrect) knowledge of her identity as the Famine Devil. He confronts her about an urban legend concerning Nostradamus' prophecy of humanity's end in July 1999 and its potential connection to her plans. Yoshida coerces Death into revealing the name and location of a primal devil recently appearing on Earth.
Later, during the Falling Devil's attack, Death orchestrates the assault with the intention of starving and enslaving Yoru, the devil sharing Asa's body. The Falling Devil's failure to feed Asa to a devil prompts Death's arrival, where she discloses her involvement and sinister plans. She attempts to recruit Nayuta, but Nayuta declines due to her studies.
In the "Chainswa Man War" arc, Death arranges for Haruka to appear on a public talk show, where he faces humiliation. Backstage, she explains that the purpose was to subject Haruka to ridicule and instructs him not to dwell on it. A mysterious figure appears, emphasizing Haruka's role as the "face" of the Chainsaw Man Church, while Death operates as the "brains." Death helps orchestrate the Fire Devil's attack on Tokyo, turning the population into pseudo-Chainsaw Mans, and with the help of Barem Bridge, goads Denji into transforming into Chainsaw Man again by burning down his apartment. After the attack, Denji is taken in by Public Safety where they intend to do experiments on him, but Death teams up with Yoru and Asa to get him back.
After getting him back and trying to lift Denji's spirits, Barem reappears to reveal he killed Nayuta, which causes Denji to transform into Black Chainsaw Man and go to war with Public Safety. Death sits on the sidelines and observes, and at the end of the long battle, parts ways with Fumiko and Yoshida so she can join the school festival committee with her friends, saying that she has grown bored of the two of them, and was only really interested in Denji and Yoru. With her plans thwarted, and interest gone, she leaves the two of them alone on a park bench.
Powers & Abilities[]
As a Devil, Death possesses all of the standard Devil abilities. While her powers and their extent are still unclear, she seems to be able to influence the power of Devils in some way. Rather than being directly involved in conflicts, she prefers to utilize the powers of other Devils who are either cooperating with her voluntarily or under her direct control. She was able to separate Yoru from Asa temporarily but left Asa her power to turn people and objects into weapons and communicated with her at a distance despite Asa being trapped in another Devil's pocket dimension.
Supernatural Abilities[]
- Revival: Death has shown the ability to revive something that's dead, causing the healed person to gain great strength and size. This ability was used on Yuko after she was fatally injured by Asa Mitaka's weapon.
- Enslavement: As Death embodies the fear of Death, her ability reflects this nature. She's able to turn any being that she has killed and eaten into her pawn to do her bidding, so long as she savors their lives. This ability works even on Primal Fears. Furthermore, she can turn those whom she put under her control into miniature figurines of themselves to transport them easily.
- Falling Devil: As shown, one of the devils that she has successfully enslaved into becoming her subordinate is the Primal Fear, Falling Devil. As shown, Death possesses a powerful control over this devil despite her immense power, as shown when she obediently follows her orders without question.
- Justice Devil: A Devil that was brought out during the fight with Falling. It had the power to swallow people whole and chase them with large tentacles.
- Fire Devil: Another one of the Devils she has managed to turn into a pawn is the Fire Devil, who gets stronger the more contracts it does.
- Guillotine Devil: One of Death's many pawns she collected at some point in time. Despite being under Death's control, this Devil exhibits its own level of independence by disobeying its current master's commands on occasion.
- Famine Devil: After Kiga arrives to earth to stop Death, Death makes a plan for her and Fake Chainsaw Man to bring a rein of terror onto humanity. In order to do so, she eats them alive and turns them into her slaves.
- Fake Chainsaw Man: Eaten at the same time as Kiga, Fake Chainsaw Man originally arrived to help her stop Death, but he too was caught by her and eaten to become her slave.
- Teleportation: Death can seemingly appear anywhere she chooses at any moment. She snapped her fingers to teleport out of the aquarium and later suddenly appeared next to Yoru and Asa who noted that the door was locked so there was no way she could have gotten in.
Personality[]
Death has a very mysterious personality and shows little outward emotion. She is always calm, cold, and composed and also seems to be very good at reading others, as she accurately describes both Asa's and Denji's characters. Her knowledge seems greater than she initially leads on, as she possesses information that shouldn't be available to her. Death doesn't care if someone discovers her true identity and therefore puts little to no effort into her alias. What's more is that she doesn't necessarily seem to be as outwardly malicious as her brethren, even informing Public Safety officials such as Yoshida about more dangerous Devils, albeit after being threatened first. Despite being intelligent, she underestimates people, believing that Asa, like most people, would be willing to do anything to survive if forced to, which gets proven wrong.
Age[]
Death's true age is unknown, as she is a Devil and takes the appearance of a young woman, but her age likely exceeds over 100. She is the eldest of the Four Horsemen.
Appearances[]
| Quick Jump | |
|---|---|
Part 1: Public Safety Saga[]
- Chapter 84: Hero of Hell (mentioned)
Part 2: Academy Saga[]
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Trivia[]
- As Famine, Kiga's name is written entirely in katakana (キガ), showcasing no semantic meanings. However, her name is a play on the number of syllables of the word Famine to the amount of mora the Hepburn romanization "kiga" has.
- In Japanese, the word "kiga" has the same homophone as the Japanese word for "penguin". So, in the Japanese language, there was meant to be a double comedic effect of how Denji wanted to see penguins and Death appears shortly after.
- Death's earrings were foreshadowing of her true identity, and are a reference to the weighing of souls, which is a religious motif in which a person's life is assessed by weighing their soul (or some other part of them) immediately before or after death in order to judge their fate. This motif is seen in medieval Christianity.
- Death's head is nearly always tilted to her left (like an unbalanced scale)
- More foreshadowing of her true identity being Death is the fact that she appears on the 14th volume of the series which released on April 4th, (4/4). The reuse of the number 4 is significant because the number 4 in Japanese is a symbol for death due to them being pronounced the same.
- Like with Santa Claus, Fujimoto likely gave Death a few facial moles because he finds that the more moles a character has, the better they look.
Cover Gallery[]
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Chainsaw Man Series
   | |
|---|---|
| Parts | Public Safety Saga ∙ Academy Saga |
| Protagonists | Denji ∙ Asa Mitaka |
| Antagonists | Makima ∙ Death Devil |
| Devils | Pochita ∙ Yoru |