Throughout Part 1, Makima serves as the leader of Public Safety Division 4's Devil Hunters, manipulating the events of the series behind the scenes and revealing more of her true nature as they unfold.

The character was praised by critics and reviewers due to the juxtaposition of her enigmatic nature and horror elements with her soft femininity and nurturing facade.

According to series creator Tatsuki Fujimoto, Makima was the first character in Chainsaw Man that he solidly envisioned "both inside and outside", as a figure that represented "domination".

[5] Yeung described her overall approach as "soft" and "disarm[ing]" but with a "threatening" undertone, contrasting Makima's "very specific" and secret motivations and intentions with the easy-to-understand nature of her other roles.

She uses her intimidating but gentle facade to hide her true nature as a Machiavellian manipulator who desires above all else to control the world and rid it of concepts that she perceives as its "ills".

Throughout the series, Makima demonstrates a number of superpowers, including crushing the heads of targets via hand gestures in a telekinetic ritual involving human sacrifices, using rats and crows to spy on enemies, using the finger gun gesture to blast targets akin to an actual gun, and most prominently mind control (albeit only once her true nature is revealed).

Makima appears at the end of the first chapter and first episode of Chainsaw Man, offering main character Denji food and shelter in exchange for his obedience and treating him like a dog, threatening to hunt him down as a Devil if he refuses to comply.

[8] While Makima's morality and goals are kept nebulous for much of the series, she is eventually revealed to be the Control Devil, and the true primary threat faced by Denji.

[14] Noting her behavior throughout the series, Swift pointed out that the narrative presents Makima as the "greatest force for good" but the only one of the four main characters that couldn't confidently be trusted by the viewer,[15] singling her out as "terrifying", "enigmatic", "fearsome",[16] and a "likely [...] sociopath".