The Death Devil is the eldest of the Four Horsemen and the most feared Devil in existence, because death is the fear every living thing shares. Her younger sisters — Control, War and Hunger — all scheme around her arrival, which a prophecy ties to the end of humanity. Calm, distant and impossible to read, she treats life and death as things that were always going to happen. Even Devils who have never died speak carefully around her. Where she walks, endings follow quietly along behind her steps.

Denji is Chainsaw Man, a teenager who hunted Devils to pay off his dead father's yakuza debt, with boiled weeds for dinner and dreams no bigger than jam upon toast and a girlfriend. When he dies, pet Devil Pochita becomes his heart, and pulling the cord in his chest turns his head and arms into chainsaws. Recruited by Makima into Public Safety, he fights for steak, rent money and being adored as a hero. Loud, crude and heartbreakingly sincere, he just wants a normal life — and keeps choosing it.

Power is the Blood Fiend, the Blood Devil possessing a young woman's corpse, and a Public Safety hunter in Makima's Special Division. Loud, selfish, lying and feral, with pink hair, horns and fangs, she shapes her blood into hammers and spears and drinks more of it to heal. She starts out treasuring only her cat, Meowy, but living with Denji and Aki turns her into real family; she even gives her blood and her life to save Denji. Death cannot hold her — the Blood Devil always rises again in Hell.

Makima is the Control Devil, the Horseman of Conquest, hiding in plain sight as a high-ranking Public Safety Devil Hunter. Beautiful, soft-spoken and ring-eyed, she recruits Denji with food, work and the promise of a normal life, then uses everyone as mere tools. She can control anyone she believes is beneath her, forcing contracts and sacrifices through others. Her true goal is Pochita, the Chainsaw Devil, whose power to erase Devils she wants to build a world without fear, death or bad movies.

The Angel Devil is a Devil in Tokyo Special Division 4 who looks like his namesake: androgynous, winged and haloed, beautiful and permanently tired. He hates work, loves soft-serve ice cream, and apologizes to dying humans as he ends them gently. His touch steals lifespan — ten years can become a weapon in his hands — so Aki keeps everyone at glove's distance from him. Makima once forced him to massacre the village that loved him. He loses both arms to the Darkness Devil, and dies shielding Aki.

Himeno is a Public Safety Devil Hunter and Aki's partner, a cigarette-smoking, eyepatch-wearing flirt who trains rookies harder because she has buried too many of them. Her contract is with the Ghost Devil: she gave her right eye for its invisible right arm, which strangles targets from beyond sight. She drinks, teases Aki about the easy revenge she hopes he chooses, and loves him hopelessly. Fighting the Snake Devil, she gives the Ghost Devil everything she has left to save him, and disappears

Yoru is the War Devil, one of the Four Horsemen, who arrives on Earth weakened because humanity has largely forgotten war. She possesses schoolgirl Asa Mitaka and shares her body and mind, arguing, scheming and changing alongside her host. Yoru can turn anything she believes belongs to her into a weapon, and guilt makes those weapons far stronger. Humiliated that Chainsaw Man once ate the Nuclear Weapons Devil, she wants revenge — and her stolen wars, nukes and glory restored to the world again.

Fami is the Famine Devil, the Horseman of Hunger, posing as a quiet, food-loving student while she moves the pieces of Part 2 from the shadows. Ring-eyed like her sisters, she can chain and command anyone starving — for food, love, attention or purpose — and calls Devils to fight for her, including the Falling Devil. Sweet-faced and permanently hungry herself, she eats constantly and speaks in small, odd sentences. Behind it all, she is preparing for her eldest sister Death's prophesied arrival.

Aki Hayakawa is a Public Safety Devil Hunter whose family was murdered by the Gun Devil, leaving revenge as the only shape his life had. Stoic, neat and cigarette-smoking, he fights using contracts: the Fox Devil, the Curse Devil's nail sword, and the Future Devil in his eye, who only laughs and says the future rules. He becomes an unwilling older brother to Denji and Power, cooking, cleaning and caring despite himself. Makima's plot turns him into the Gun Fiend, and Denji is forced to kill him.

Kobeni Higashiyama is a Public Safety Devil Hunter who never wanted the job: her parents forced her into it to pay for her brother's college, choosing it over selling her body. Timid, tearful and catastrophically unlucky in every visible way, she panics, screams and begs — yet she survives attacks that kill far greater hunters, moving like a frightened miracle with a knife when cornered. Her contract is a secret she refuses to share. She later quits hunting and ends up working at a burger chain.