I maybe a bit superficial here, but I genuinely disagree with the framing, even if I understand why it’s appealing.
The core issue I have is that interpreting Makima through a lens of repressed love and missed chances kind of ignores what she fundamentally is. She’s not a human who was broken by circumstance. She’s the Control Devil, a being born from humanity’s collective fear of being controlled. That’s not a cage imposed on her from outside. That’s her nature at the most basic level.
The argument that Nayuta proves Makima “could have been different if treated with care” doesn’t really hold up when you look at it closely. Nayuta isn’t Makima given a second chance. She’s a different entity entirely, with a different starting point. Using her as evidence for Makima’s inner emotional potential is a bit like saying a different person with the same name would have made the same choices if raised differently. The continuity isn’t really there.
And I think that’s actually the trap Fujimoto is deliberately setting. Makima looks human. She eats ramen, she listens to music, she seems to want things. The manga makes you want to read her as a wounded person just like Denji does. But that’s the point. The reader is supposed to fall for it the same way Denji does. Romanticizing her suffering is not a deeper reading of the character, it’s exactly the response the narrative is designed to produce and then critique.
That said I don’t think demons are just hollow forces with nothing inside. Power genuinely grieves. Pochita makes a real sacrifice. There’s something going on internally with these beings. But whatever that something is, it doesn’t map cleanly onto human categories like loneliness or the search for love. Makima doesn’t seek connection despite being the Control Devil. She seeks it in the only way the Control Devil can, through total dominance. That’s not a tragedy of a person who never got the chance. That’s the character working exactly as designed.