#❝ MY DEVIL IS... A SECRET. ❞ → kobeni / in character.

[kakuzatos]

kobeni’s devil

!! spoilers for chainsaw man !!

so, episode 9 came out and i watched it with vigor. as expected, kobeni slayed this episode and didn’t disappoint me with her moves. damn, she was quick. you really can’t have a pure hatred for kobeni, it will always have love in the mix. 

and while i was thinking about her, i got curious about her devil again. really, what is this big secret... why was she the only one who got out alive after 100 chapters while other characters like aki and power were ultimately killed off? she surely has relevance in the plot and there is a reason why her devil is concealed as a secret. a devil like that would be thought of as a dangerous one because kobeni can’t even say its name. 

naturally, i go to a full-on zoning out session thinking of the many possibilities of kobeni’s devil. 

i. well, first, i thought of the possibility of her being a devil that has a human-like appearance like makima, yoru and fami. that is a good theory, but her having a family and a brother denounces it a bit. i’m not saying that devils don’t have families and aren’t capable of being raised by one (makima was raised by the government, that’s why she’s like the way she is, if that ever counts as a family). i’m not particularly fond with this one, though, since kobeni is pretty much the most human person in the whole cast. i mean, look at her. 

scared shitless. if she was a devil, she would’ve been happy. devils thrive on fear, they don’t live with it. that would be pretty fun, though. 

ii. moving on. she could have a contract with the death devil. it’s probably the most overstated theory and for good reason. first of all, i’ve read this comment in a reddit post about a totally unrelated, regardless interesting, observation on chapter 113.

the comment reads: 

Getting back to my tangent about the Four Horsemen: the Four Horsemen are unique because, unlike normal devils, who only use fear, the Horsemen are each able to use one of the four emotions unique to humans, listed by the Doll Devil in ch 63:

Conquest uses Worship (aka reverence). So long as humans revere her, they hold her in a "higher place", allowing her to control them. Put from her POV, that means that, so long as the human is "lower" than her, she can control them.

Conquest bends the "rules" around devil contracts in two ways. The first way is obvious - she can force "lesser" humans to submit to her contracts. The second way is by being able to claim ownership over other devils. This means that, unlike a normal devil, Conquest can use other devils like as though they were part of her own body. This gave her the ability to use Angel's powers as though they were her own. This also means she could offer the bodies of other devils in her contracts, as we saw with Aki and the Gun Devil.

War uses Guilt. The greater the guilt she feels, the stronger the weapon she creates. The irony here is that War is so selfish and so absent of the understanding of right and wrong that she's unable to feel much guilt over anything she does. She blames Pochita for her current weakness, but really, she's inherently pretty weak compared to the other Horsemen, just because of this anti-synergy with her own power.

War bends the "rules" by forming completely lopsided "contracts". Like Makima, Yoru removes the human's consent from the equation - if she claims ownership, so long as it's something she can touch, she can weaponize it. But the person turned into a weapon gains nothing from it, the only benefactor is Yoru. Completely one-sided "contracts".

Famine uses Adoration/Respect. We'll see what this means exactly later, but I think I kind of touched on it in my other comment. War and Famine are a yin and yang duo - Yoru is "night", while the heart of Justice "shines with light". And while Yoru is completely selfish and devoid of the understanding of good and evil, Famine seems stuck doing things for others (in other words, is "selfless"), all while being very concerned with the understanding of good and evil. Yoru's power is based on guilt, aka, being able to sense the evil in yourself. So hence, I suspect Famine's "Respect"-based powers are based on being able to sense the good in other people.

Famine bends the "rules" by also forming completely lopsided contracts. The difference is, while Yoru only takes... as Yuko pointed out, Justice only gives. My guess is that, if Famine senses that a human is "good", she can form zero-cost contracts.

Death uses Pity. Pity is the feeling you get when you watch other living things suffer. The idea that Death gets stronger from feelings of pity sends shivers down my spine...

This is especially the case if it's true that every Horseman is trying to cancel out the source of their own power. Conquest's dream is to form equal, nonhierarchical, relationships, which flies in the face of a being whose power is based on hierarchy. So if Death wants to be rid of the "source of its power", too, then wouldn't it have to get rid of all suffering?

notice something about death. death is also powered by pity. kobeni is pretty damn pitiful in almost all her screentime, manga or anime, except her fabulous show in episode 9. but she did experience a lot of torment and she is generally seen as pitiful. maybe, just maybe, that pity she gets from other people is what feeds the death devil. and having to survive all what happened in the past arcs, i wouldn’t be surprised if she ever was involved with such a mortifying devil like the death devil. she dodged death in multiple occasions, it’s like death sided with her. another thing, in hell or chapter 63-64, the darkness devil didn’t even try to kill her. maybe it’s scared?

it’s also such a fun concept to think about. this traumatized girl who is about to shit herself has a contract with the death devil. fucking metal. the thought alone deserves its own book. 

iii. kobeni has a contract with the luck devil! a lot of people agree with this one! i don’t know if it’s good luck or bad luck, though. she seems to somehow have both, so i’m not sure. many people do lean into the idea of a “chance devil”, but i’m pretty certain, if that was the case, it would be the “bad luck” or “misfortune” devil. if there was a luck devil, why would anyone fear good luck? it would’ve been extremely weak because, in retrospect, no one would fear good luck. 

so, bad luck. in this article, it stated that kobeni somehow feeds the bad luck devil with her own bad luck and fear, explaining why she doesn’t sacrifice her body parts. 

although this is good, personally i don’t favor it too much. fujimoto is known for his chaotic direction of his manga and always being spontaneous that you can’t predict it, but it’s done so, in a way, that it’s orchestrated. hints are left, foreshadowing is present; it’s chaotic but makes sure to make sense to us too. a good story should make sense while maintaining its unpredictability. so, a death devil is already hinted. a bad luck devil is not. (yet) 

well, this theory will just have to wait for a while. maybe, there will be a time when a bad luck devil will appear or get mentioned. 

iv. in this post, kobeni is theorized to be contracted with a devil connected to survival. for one, if that devil were to be connected to survival, it could either mean: a fear of death or a fear of getting hurt. 

a fear of death relates to the death devil. 

a fear of getting hurt relates to a pain devil of some sorts. a pain devil would be cool because it will be powerful. almost all humans are scared of being hurt and will make a bit more sense in the storyline, considering that her line of work is potentially getting hurt and seeing others getting hurt because of her. pretty neat theory! 

v. same post in iv, there’s a comment where she might be have a contract with the knife devil. although, there is no evidence to back this up, her main weapon of choice is a knife. in a way, it makes sense.  

v. car devil. no questions. in fact, according to u/LeynaSepKim, it was even foreshadowed in chapter 5, in their post.

all are only speculation! feel free to correct me or add some other theories. the only thing we can do to form more theories and solidify existing ones is to wait. we have yet to see her full potential. she is shown to be athletic in the anime and the manga, but not her power in its entirety. 

[dominiondevil]

❝   I can’t afford flowers for my buddy’s grave... So on my days off, I pick a bunch of wild flowers for a few hours... And lay them here. His bouquet is the biggest, even if they’re ugly... Then I sit. And think.   ❞

❝   At least it’s free to mourn...   ❞

[dominiondevil]

SHELTER IN THE SHAPE OF MONSTERS.   Kobeni’s life had never been so assured as it had been beside @urbanumviolentium​'s towering form to shield her from devils, although ‘beside’ was a small stretch, considering she preferred to hide from the carnage he wrought, to await any survivors of Public Safety culling in the shadows they believed to be escape. Even this had become a rare enough occurrence. Violence was sturdy in his reliability and his body both   ------   fiend as a lighthouse, she always knew it was safe when he called.

But even a girl like her could not help the guilt that arose from being protected, cowering beneath the shadows of his greater wings   (  Kobeni: the ninth daughter, always the first to chore and the last to eat, Kobeni, Kobeni, Kobeni, don’t you know how much your sisters have to lose because they have one more burden to split with?  )   .   As she nibbled on a takoyaki, she could not help but voice such sentiments.

❝   You’re always giving me tasty things... Thank you.   ❞

❝   I wish I could buy you things, too, Violence... Even a keychain you like would be nice... But my parents make me give them my payslips, so I can’t even sneak pocket change... Maybe I could make you something?   ❞