Who Are the Hayakawa Family in Chainsaw Man? (& Who Are Its Members?)

Aki is one of the main supporting characters of the Chainsaw Man manga and anime. A curious man, Aki was initially very antagonistic towards Denji but would later become his close ally. Although the Chainsaw Man manga is still ongoing, Aki’s story is over, but that won’t stop us from discussing his story here. In this article, we are actually going to tell about the Hayakawa family, i.e., Aki, his brother, and their parents, whose stories we are going to present in this article.

The Hayakawa family consisted of four members. Aki Hayakawa was its most famous member. Aki had a younger brother, Taiyo Hayakawa, who was sick from an unknown illness, and two living parents, who cared a lot for his brother. All of them, save for Aki, were killed during an attack by the Gun Devil, which prompted Aki to become a Devil Hunter. He was later also killed by the Gun Devil while protecting Makima and turned into the Gun Fiend, who was eventually killed off by Denji.

The rest of this article is going to focus on the character of Aki Hayakawa and his whole family. These intriguing characters have been featured a lot in the first part of the manga, so we are going to bring you as many details as possible so that you know everything about them. If you haven’t read the manga, we have to warn you that there are going to be spoilers present in this article.

Who are the Hayakawa family in Chainsaw Man?

The Hayakawa family is one of the rare families in Chainsaw Man that was actually addressed at some point in the story. Now, they do not play a large role in the story, but they are crucial to understanding Aki Hayakawa’s story in the Chainsaw Man manga. The Hayakawa family was a family of four, consisting of two parents and two sons, the older one being Aki Hayakawa, and the younger one being Taiyo Hayakawa.

It is unknown what the parents did for a living, but we do know that they cared for Taiyo very much. Taiyo was sick from an unknown illness while he was a child and the parents seemed to put a lot of effort into taking care of him. This is why Aki was alone most of the time and why he, sometimes, got angry at his brother because he was always getting all the attention and never wanted to play with him.

On the dreaded day that was shown in the manga and anime, Taiyo accepted Aki’s invitation and went out to play with him in the snow. Aki was in a bad mood the whole time, while Taiyo was happy to be spending time with him. At one point, Aki softened up, and seeing how his brother was cold in the snow, he sent him back home to put something warmer on. As he was waiting, he observed his house – along with the three members of his family – disappear. He was shocked. He later found out that it was the doing of the Gun Devil, and that his family died as collateral victims of an attack by the dreaded Devil. This is why Aki swore revenge and became a Devil Hunter.

Ironically, Aki ended up being killed by the Gun Devil himself; after that, the Gun Devil possessed his body and became the Gun Fiend, intent on killing Denji. Still, Aki managed to fight off the Gun Devil’s influence, which ultimately allowed Denji to defeat and kill the Gun Fiend.

Who are the members of the Hayakawa family?

In this section, we are going to introduce the individual members of the Hayakawa family from Chainsaw Man.

Aki Hayakawa

Aki Hayakawa vowed to become a Devil Hunter in order to exact revenge on the Gun Devil following the November 18, 10:00 a.m. attack by the latter, which targeted the entire planet for five minutes and killed his parents and younger brother. Before meeting Himeno, who had recently lost her mission companion, he signed a deal with the Fox Devil who was his loyal companion later on. Aki Hayakawa, whom she trains, eventually picks up some of her bad habits, like smoking. Aki Hayakawa later joins the Anti-Devil Special Unit 4 (the precise date is uncertain).

Later on, the focus shifts to the Gun Devil Arc, which was a major arc from Part 1 of the Chainsaw Man manga and it was the story in which the Gun Devil finally appeared and was the principal antagonist, although he was mentioned earlier several occasions before. In between the original mention of Aki’s backstory and his desire to avenge the death of his family and the beginning of the Gun Devil arc, there were several other, some more, some less important, arcs that furthered Aki’s story but they did not reveal much backstory details about him and are not relevant for this article, which is why we are going to skip these events, as they are not directly related to Aki’s ultimate fate, as it was portrayed during the Gun Devil Arc.

On September 12, 1997, a 12-second Gun Devil attack takes place in the Japanese town of Nikaho in the Akita Prefecture. The Gun Devil’s ability to fire bullets is activated as soon as he emerges. The Gun Devil approaches Makima as he burns villages to the ground and murders their residents. It might be visible to Makima from 500 kilometers away. The Gun Devil halts before turning to shoot at Makima.

Just before being shot, Makima unleashes her power. Nevertheless, the Gun Devil kills Makima and Aki, who attempted to save Makima from death by setting aside his own vengeance in order to maybe save her. Makima had just recorded her 29th kill. Makima combines the abilities of both the Angel and Spider Devils, as well as the agreements she has with Yutaro Kurose, Akane Sawatari, Michiko Tendo, and Aki Hayakawa, to defeat it.

Nevertheless, Makima “failed” to destroy the Gun Devil. Namely, Aki Hayakawa’s corpse was infested by the Gun Devil’s remnants, which ultimately turned Aki into the Gun Fiend in one of the most heartbreaking and ironic moments of the whole series. The Gun Fiend, now an enemy, moves swiftly toward Aki’s residence and knocks on the door. Makima tells Denji, who has no clue what is going on, to open it, but the Gun Field shoots him in the stomach immediately after.

A significant amount of Aki’s apartment is destroyed in the process, while Denji and Power are catapulted into the air in the direction of the attack. The Gun Fiend then engages Denji in combat, completely destroying the neighborhood in the process and injuring several bystanders as well. In the process, Aki remembers the snowball fight he had with his younger brother just before his family was killed by the Gun Devil, but this time – in the vision – it is Denji and not his younger brother he is playing with.

After taking blood and hearing pleas for assistance from the locals, Denji eventually kills the Gun Fiend and defeats him. This happened because Aki had a second vision of Denji crying, which is why he ultimately gave up on fighting him, because he both remembered his little brother, and considered Denji a friend. Still, despite that, it seems that this was not the last we’ve seen of the Gun Devil, but he has not appeared since.

Taiyo Hayakawa

Taiyo Hayakawa was Aki Hayakawa’s younger brother. He resembled Aki, although his personality was completely different – where Aki was calm and quiet, Taiyo was cheerful and liked to spend time with his older brother. Aki wanted to play, but he was actually envious of the attention his brother was getting and then Taiyo actually agreed to play with him, and he tried to chase him away.

Taiyo suffered from an unknown illness, in the sense that it was not named in the manga. It was probably something chronic, as Aki commented how Taiyo was always unable to play with him. Still, Taiyo tried to enjoy life as much as he could, regardless of his illness and that is why he actually accepted Aki’s invitation and went out to play with him. He ultimately died during the Gun Devil’s attack, as we have said.

Unnamed parents

Aki and his borhter had two living parents before the incident. They were seen during one scene, where their mother was reading a book – The Country Mouse and the City Mouse – to a sick Taiyo in bed, with their father also being there. Not much is known about them save for that; they seemed to care more about Taiyo than Aki, but that was probably because Taiyo was ill. They both died during the Gun Devil incident.