How Do Contracts Work in Chainsaw Man? Explained

The world of the Chainsaw Man anime and manga is a fantastical one but in the grimmest way possible. While people may be able to achieve exceptional levels of power and physical prowess, it comes at the cost of signing contracts with Devils, which are always weighted in the Devils’ favor. As you’ve continued on through the series, though, a question has likely popped up: How do contracts work in Chainsaw Man, and what exactly are the rules surrounding them?

Fortunately for you, we’ve dug through everything related to the series and found some answers for you.

How Do Contracts With Devils Work in Chainsaw Man? Explained

For the most part, Contracts with Devils in Chainsaw Man are fairly straightforward. In exchange for an ability or attack tied to the Devil in question, the person making the Contract has to give up something in return.

More often than not, this ends up being a part of themselves, such as the person’s flesh or body part. In more extreme cases where the person gains astronomical power, though, they instead have to give up something more valuable. This could mean giving up part of one’s life span or giving up one’s life entirely.

However, this doesn’t necessarily have to be something from the Contract maker specifically. The people the Contract maker cares about, or people that they’re legally responsible for, can also be used as collateral. This is how the leaders of countries are able to make contracts with the most powerful Devils in existence and how they’re able to ensure they have a trump card in case of attacks from powerful Devils.

The severity of what’s given up for the contract can also vary based on how much a certain Devil likes humans or the person they’re dealing with. This is why the Fox Devil, which likes humans and really likes Aki, only takes a small amount of flesh from one’s arm in exchange for manifesting its head and devouring even large-scale Devils with ease.

Likewise, there are examples of Devils making more favorable contracts in exchange for things that don’t negatively impact the Contract holder at all. For example, Pochita agreed to become Denji’s heart and bring him back to life in exchange for living a happy life. This was done because Pochita loved Denji as a found family member and was willing to give his power to Denji basically free of charge.

There are also several times throughout the series where Devils offer people benefits in exchange for letting them kill Denji or eat Denji’s heart. In these cases, the Devil gets something out of the exchange – whether that means killing Denji or consuming his heart for power – while the person who would offer him up to said Devils would get something without being harmed.

How Many Devil Contracts Can You Have at Once?

As for what the limitations are to Contracts with Devils in Chainsaw Man, they’re really only limited to what the person making the contract can offer and how the Devil they’re dealing with feels.

So long as the person making the Contract has flesh, limbs, organs or part of their life span to offer, they can make contracts with one or more Devils using said parts of themselves as collateral. It then comes down to whether or not the Devil they’re dealing with accepts their offer, or if said Devil is willing to make a contract with someone based on who they are, what other Devils they have contracts with, and so forth.

Can Devils Break Their Contracts?

It’s also worth noting that Devils are physically unable to break the Contracts they make in Chainsaw Man. If a Devil were to take something away from someone and not provide them with power, they would then immediately die and be forced to reincarnate with much less power.

Not only that, but they would lose all of their memories, forcing them to start from scratch in terms of making Contracts with humans, sowing fear of whatever they’re tied to, and so on. This serves as a safety net for the humans making the contracts, and ensures that they’ll always get what they negotiated out of their arrangements.

However, said safety net doesn’t activate if the Devil doesn’t take something from a human first. It’s more than capable of simply refusing to manifest or provide a human with power in order to keep itself safe, which humans who make contracts need to be aware of whenever trying to use powers obtained through Devil Contracts.

Hopefully this cleared up how contracts work in Chainsaw Man. For more on the series, we’ve got a ton of other explainer guides on topics like what Devil Kobeni has a Contract with, what the Eternity Devil is, and why the Eternity Devil wanted to eat Denji. We’ve also got plenty of other related articles which you can peruse down below.