Nobana Higashiyama

The family resemblance to Kobeni runs strong in Nobana, who shares her face, her eyes, and a scattering of moles, his own pair sitting below the right eye. His short brown hair is pinned back on the right by six clips while the left side spills toward his face, and he stands notably short, much as his sister does. He turns up in Fourth East High School's boys' uniform, sometimes topped by the Devil Hunter Club's cap, and is rarely seen without a sheen of sweat and a flush in his cheeks.

Anxiety defines him even more than it does Kobeni, and where she occasionally rises to the moment, he never does, flinching through every scene without a single flash of nerve. Embarrassment swamps him so easily that he cannot even stammer out the word sex. His parents, like hers, have loaded him with obligations he never wanted, the Devil Hunter Club chief among them. His psyche proves brittle: days locked inside an aquarium reduce him to mindlessly lapping at the glass. Once he falls in with the Chainsaw Man Church, he swallows its doctrine whole, an easy mark for manipulation and conspiracy thinking. He comes to insist, for one, that adult marriage is an American scheme to enslave the Japanese, and he urges his classmates to wed young and raise children.

His mother pressed him into the Devil Hunter Club hoping it would win him scholarships, and bullies once forced him to use his lighter on their cigarettes. He enters the story after Yuko's rampage at Fourth East High, part of the club trio alongside Haruka Iseumi and Seigi Akoku that admits Asa Mitaka to their ranks. While patrolling Tanashi Aquarium, the group is sealed inside by the revived Eternity Devil; over three trapped days Nobana comes apart, and they break free only when Asa reshapes the building into a spear. Afterward he signs on with the Chainsaw Man Church, working as its tour guide, leading Denji and Miri Sugo through its headquarters until Barem Bridge orders him back to his duties.

When Public Safety storms the church, he and the other followers are quickly subdued. Captured and held at the Tokyo Devil Detention Center, he is sprung loose by Asa and Fami and tags along on their mission to recover the dismantled Chainsaw Man. It is Nobana who finds Pochita intact and slots him back into Denji's body, learning in the process that Denji is Chainsaw Man. Cornered by Quanxi, he survives only by raising Denji's severed head as a shield, which stays her hand thanks to a vow she once made to Kishibe. The rescue curdles at a sushi counter where Barem serves Nayuta's head as a dish, driving Denji to tear Barem apart as Pochita seizes control. By the War Devil arc, Public Safety has locked Nobana away once more.