The Weak Character Who Surprisingly Survived the Public Safety Saga

This article contains major spoilers from
Chainsaw Man
’s Public Safety Saga (the whole first saga).

Key Takeaways

• Kobeni Higashiyama defies the odds by surviving the brutal and violent Public Safety Saga, despite being seen as weak.
• Kobeni, a devil hunter with a mysterious contract, is a regular girl working to support her family.
• Despite facing multiple near-death experiences, Kobeni remains presumed alive and a fan favorite character in Chainsaw Man.

Chainsaw Man is a manga known for not sparing readers from dealing with the death of their favorite characters, and fans might even call it something like “the Game of Thrones manga version”. For sure, Chainsaw Man can be quite crude and violent.

However, despite the story’s brutality that brings death to a lot of fan favorite characters, there is someone who most readers thought would be too weak to survive, but, against all odds, is still alive by the end of the first part of the manga (the Public Safety Saga). Her name is Kobeni Higashiyama.

Who Exactly Is Kobeni?

An unlikely devil hunter with an unknown contract

Kobeni is a supporting character with an unspecified contract. She is actually only working as a devil hunter because she needs money to support her parents and nine siblings. Kobeni is portrayed as shy and as a coward, which makes people think she is useless, but that’s not true. She might not be as powerful as Makima or Power, but she has some abilities and strength.

Basically, she is just a regular girl who, at some point, made a contract with a devil because she has bills to pay.

Kobeni was part of the team that goes after the Eternity Devil in Episode 5, and she tried, alongside Hirokazu Arai, to offer Denji to the devil when they were all trapped in the eighth floor of a hotel. Later on, she apologized for that. Despite not being exactly a main character, she gets involved in most events during the series, and that usually makes her feel scared.

She also owns a small car, seemingly a 1965 Fiat 500, which ranked 7th in the first Chainsaw Man popularity poll. Kobeni herself ranked 8th and outlived everyone who ranked higher, except for Denji.

In one chapter of the manga, Power drives her car and accidentally runs over a devil, killing them but also highly damaging the car. Kobeni’s car hasn’t appeared in the story ever since, so it’s possible to say she even outlived her own car.

What Happened To Kobeni?

Presumed alive, but no more information

Kobeni is actually lucky to be alive, because she was almost killed more than once. The first time she faced death was during the Katana Man Arc, when Hirokazu died protecting her. Later on, she resigned from Makima’s squad and got a job as a waitress.

She gets in danger many times during the saga, but, at one point, Kobeni goes on a date with the Chainsaw Devil (for a good reason) and then she goes through another near-death experience. Once again, she luckily ends up alive, safe and sound.

Despite, or maybe exactly because of her clumsy and timid personality, a lot of readers became fond of Kobeni, especially within the Japanese fandom. But most of them probably imagined she would eventually be killed. Defying the odds, and with a bit of luck, she was able to survive the whole saga, proving that sometimes wanting to run away might be the best option.

There’s actually a joke among fans that everyone who harmed or tried to harm her ends up dead. It’s funny but also true to some extent: even major powerful characters like Power and Makima are killed at some point, while scared Kobeni prevails, which also spawned memes such as the infamous “I believe in Kobeni supremacy”:

Since she hasn’t appeared so far in the second part of the manga, it is unknown what exactly happened to her, but she is presumed alive. Anyway, considering her life is miserable during the Public Safety Saga, let’s just hope she is doing better now.

Chainsaw Man is available to read via Viz Media. The series can be read by the fans officially and for free on the Shonen Jump and the Manga Plus apps. The release date for the next chapter of Chainsaw Man, Chainsaw Man 183, is set to be November 19, 2024.