Conventional Weaponry and Its Limits

Standard human weaponry — firearms, bladed weapons, and explosives — forms the baseline equipment for devil hunters around the world. Public Safety equips its hunters with handguns, rifles, katanas, and combat knives as standard issue, with specialized units receiving access to heavier ordinance including shotguns, submachine guns, and fragmentation grenades. These conventional weapons are effective against the lower tiers of devilkind — the zombie devils, the lesser fiends, and the minor devils that constitute the majority of devil encounters. A well-placed bullet or a precise katana strike can neutralize a street-level devil before it becomes a major threat, and most devil hunters spend their entire careers operating at this level of engagement.

However, conventional weapons rapidly lose effectiveness against higher-tier devils. The Gun Devil, ironically, is entirely immune to bullets — its body is composed of gun-based matter that absorbs and redirects projectile attacks. The Darkness Devil operates on a conceptual level where physical weapons are meaningless, killing hunters through existential attacks rather than physical damage. Even mid-tier devils like the Leech Devil and Bat Devil can shrug off small-arms fire and heal from blade wounds faster than they can be inflicted. This power gap between conventional weapons and devil durability is the fundamental problem of devil hunting: the weapons that work on 90 percent of devils are completely useless against the 10 percent that pose the greatest threat.

Gun Devil Fragments: The Ultimate Arms Race

After the Gun Devil's devastating rampage and subsequent defeat, its body was fragmented and distributed across the globe in what became the most significant geopolitical event in the Chainsaw Man world. The USSR obtained 28 percent of the fragments, the United States secured 20 percent, China claimed 11 percent, and the remaining portions were scattered among smaller nations, black market dealers, and unknown locations. These fragments are the most valuable military assets in existence — they retain a portion of the Gun Devil's power and can be weaponized by nations that possess them. A nation with a significant Gun Devil fragment stockpile wields disproportionate influence in international affairs, as the threat of deploying Gun Devil-derived weapons serves as an ultimate deterrent.

The fragment distribution created a new world order where devil hunting and devil weaponization became central to national security. Nations without fragments scramble to acquire them through any means available — espionage, black market purchases, military conquest, or alliance with fragment-holding powers. The fragments also serve as a currency of supernatural influence: trading fragments for devil contracts, hybrid creation, or political concessions has become a shadow economy operating beneath the surface of international relations. This arms race drives much of the geopolitical tension in the Chainsaw Man world, with the International Assassins arc demonstrating how far nations will go to acquire or protect their fragment holdings.

Anti-Devil Manufacturing and Research

Governments invest heavily in research and development of specialized anti-devil weaponry designed to overcome the limitations of conventional arms. Japan's Public Safety maintains a dedicated research division that studies devil biology, contract mechanics, and containment protocols. Their work has produced specialized ammunition treated with devil-repellent compounds, containment barriers that can temporarily hold minor devils, and detection technology that can sense devil presence before visual contact is established. These technologies improve hunter survival rates but remain experimental and unreliable against higher-tier threats.

The most extreme expression of anti-devil research is the hybrid program — government-sponsored initiatives to create human-devil hybrids as living weapons. The Soviet Union's hybrid program produced Reze the Bomb Hybrid, while Japan's Yakuza connections facilitated the creation of Katana Man through Gun Devil fragment infusion. These programs represent the logical endpoint of anti-devil weaponization: if conventional weapons cannot match devil power, then the solution is to create human weapons that incorporate devil power directly. Hybrid programs are ethically controversial and technically unreliable — many attempts fail, and even successful hybrids like Reze maintain enough free will to potentially turn against their creators. Nevertheless, the strategic value of a successful hybrid is so enormous that nations continue to invest in hybrid research despite the risks and failures.

Blessed Weapons and Ritual Arms

Beyond conventional technology, devil hunters employ blessed and ritually-prepared weapons that carry supernatural efficacy against devils. These weapons are created through a combination of religious blessing, devil contract infusion, or exposure to concentrated human belief. Blessed blades, in particular, appear to have enhanced cutting power against devil flesh and can wound entities that conventional weapons cannot harm. The exact mechanism of blessing is unclear — it may involve fragmentary contracts with minor devils, residual power from religious faith, or simply the concentrated will of the user manifesting as supernatural effect.

Ritual weapons like Aki's Curse Devil nail represent a different category — items that serve as focuses for specific devil contracts. The nail, when used to strike an opponent three times from behind, summons the Curse Devil to execute a guaranteed kill at the cost of the user's lifespan. These weapons are powerful but carry significant cost, ensuring they are used only as last resorts. The existence of blessed and ritual weapons suggests that humanity's response to devils is not purely technological but incorporates spiritual, contractual, and psychological elements that conventional military analysis would not capture.

The Hybrid Program: Human-Devel Weapons

The hybrid program represents humanity's most ambitious and dangerous approach to anti-devil weaponry: rather than trying to match devil power with technology, the program creates beings that incorporate devil power directly into human bodies. The process involves fusing a human with a devil heart, typically through Gun Devil fragment infusion or voluntary contract with a weapon devil. Successful hybrids maintain their human consciousness while gaining the ability to transform into a devil-human hybrid form at will, combining human tactical thinking with devil combat capability.

The known hybrid examples demonstrate both the potential and the risks of the program. Reze, created through the Soviet Union's hybrid program, is a capable operative who serves Soviet interests while maintaining enough independent will to form genuine relationships and ultimately defect. Katana Man, created through Yakuza/Gun Devil fragment infusion, is more loyal to his creators but also more limited in tactical flexibility. Quanxi, the Crossbow Hybrid, operates as an independent agent rather than a government asset, suggesting that hybrids can outgrow their programming. The hybrid program's long-term viability is uncertain, but its existence has permanently changed the strategic landscape of devil hunting, creating a new category of weapon that blurs the line between human and devil in ways that society has not yet fully processed.

Strategic Limitations of Human Technology

Despite decades of research and massive investment, human anti-devil technology faces fundamental limitations that no amount of development appears capable of overcoming. Primordial fear devils like the Darkness Devil and the Falling Devil operate on conceptual levels where physical weapons simply do not apply — they can be harmed only through supernatural means, and even the most advanced conventional weapons are useless against them. The Gun Devil demonstrated that a sufficiently powerful devil can render entire categories of human weaponry obsolete through sheer scale and speed, killing tens of thousands in minutes despite the full deployment of military countermeasures.

These limitations have forced a strategic recalculation in how humanity approaches devil defense. Pure technological solutions are increasingly seen as insufficient, and the most effective devil-hunting organizations now prioritize relationships with devils — contracts, alliances, and hybrid programs — over weapons development. Public Safety's most powerful assets are not their firearms or explosives but their contracted devils and hybrid operatives. This shift from technology to relationships represents a fundamental change in human strategy, acknowledging that in a world of supernatural threats, the most effective response is not to fight devils with human tools but to use devils against each other, leveraging the supernatural power system rather than trying to match it with technology that was never designed for such conflicts.

The Future of Anti-Devil Technology

The future of human anti-devil weaponry lies not in conventional arms development but in the integration of human technology with supernatural power systems. Hybrid programs, devil contract networks, and blessed weapon manufacturing represent the cutting edge of anti-devil capability, and further advances are likely to come from deeper integration between human and devil systems rather than from purely technological innovation. Research into devil biology may eventually yield insights that allow more effective conventional weapons, but the fundamental power gap between technology and supernatural threats suggests that hybrid approaches will dominate future development.

External Resources

• Chainsaw Man Fandom: Gun Devil — Gun Devil history, fragment distribution, and power analysis.
• Wikipedia: Chainsaw Man — Series overview and major plot points.