Key takeaways
- Chapters 1–4: bank everything. Buy the daily store stock but hand nothing over until you’ve met all twelve characters. Presents never expire, and half your early inventory is off-category for whoever you were planning to gift first.
- Pick three anchors — Denji, Power, Aki. Their preferred categories overlap with the cheapest store goods, and their level 3 weapon parts carry the mid-game difficulty spike. Budget 360 points total, roughly 40 common category-matched gifts, which is about 6,000–10,000 yen of store stock.
- Spend Blood Chips only on anchor rares. At 8–12 chips per mission, a 30-chip exchange is three missions of income. Don’t buy a rare for a character below level 2.
- Convert duplicates immediately. Three commons you’ll never gift are worth one uncommon; three uncommons are worth one rare. Conversion is the only source of rares that doesn’t compete with Blood Chips.
- Post-game: finish the roster. Once story missions are exhausted, bounties refill fastest. Expect roughly 4–6 hours of focused bounty-and-store farming to move the remaining nine characters from level 1 to level 3.
In Chainsaw Man: Devil’s Heart, Presents are gift items you hand to named characters at the safehouse hub between missions — each character has one or two preferred categories, and every gift converts into relationship points that unlock skill cards, weapon parts, story scenes, and combat assists.
You never buy Presents with real money and you can’t permanently miss the ones you need: the two reliable sources (the safehouse store and the Blood Bank exchange) restock forever. What you can waste is time, because a Present handed to the wrong character gives half value. The tables below cover where each Present comes from, who actually wants it, what the points pay out, and the shortest route to a full roster.
Where Presents Come From
Five sources feed your gift inventory, and they differ sharply in cost per point. The store is your bread and butter; the Blood Bank is where you buy the rares that finish a character off.
| Source | Cost | What you get | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safehouse convenience store | 400–1,500 yen | 1 random common or uncommon Present | Every in-game day |
| Mission clear reward | Free | 1–2 chapter-themed Presents | Once per mission |
| Blood Bank exchange | 30 Blood Chips | Choice of 1 rare Present from 3 offers | Weekly |
| Bounty board contract | 1 cleared bounty | 1 themed Present (weapon parts, food, books) | Per bounty |
| Duplicate conversion | 3 duplicates of one tier | 1 random Present of the next tier up | Unlimited |
Yen is never tight after the first few chapters, so the real bottleneck is Blood Chips — you earn roughly 8–12 per mission and need 30 for a single rare. That’s the number that should drive your routing decisions, not yen.
Who Wants What
Every character accepts anything, but a gift matching a preferred category scores the full amount; an off-category gift scores 50%. The values below assume a rare Present in a preferred category.
| Character | Preferred categories | Cheap option | Best option | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denji | Food, manga | Store bento (common) | Family-size meat platter (rare) | 45 |
| Power | Sweets, trinkets | Melon bread (common) | Cat figurine (rare) | 45 |
| Aki Hayakawa | Cigarettes, coffee, household goods | Canned coffee (common) | Imported cigarette carton (rare) | 45 |
| Makima | Wine, records, fine dining | Record-store single (uncommon) | Vintage wine bottle (rare) | 45 |
| Himeno | Alcohol, cigarettes | Cheap sake (common) | Whisky bottle (rare) | 45 |
| Kobeni | Sweets, plushies | Candy bag (common) | Oversized plush (rare) | 45 |
| Kishibe | Liquor, blades | Blade oil (common) | Combat knife set (rare) | 45 |
Two characters — Denji and Aki — accept the widest range of cheap goods, which is exactly why they’re the cheapest to push to high levels early. Makima’s categories are expensive at every tier; she is a late-game project, not an opening move.
Relationship Levels and What They Pay Out
Gift points accumulate per character and never decay. Points are worth 6 for a common, 12 for an uncommon, and 30 for a rare, multiplied by 1.5 for a category match — so 9, 18, and 45 respectively.
| Level | Total points needed | Unlock |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Acquaintance | 20 | Full dialogue tree, 1 daily consumable from the character |
| 2 — Trusted | 60 | Signature skill card, rank 1 |
| 3 — Close | 120 | Weapon part or outfit piece |
| 4 — Confidant | 200 | Locked story scene plus a permanent passive bonus |
| 5 — Partner | 300 | Ultimate card and a partner assist usable in missions |
Level 3 is the value cliff. Getting a character from 120 to 300 points costs more than twice what levels 1–3 cost combined and returns one passive, one scene, and one assist. Take everyone to 3 before you take anyone to 5.
An Efficient Collection Route
Twelve giftable characters × 300 points is 3,600 points for a full roster — about 80 rare category-matched gifts. You do not need that to clear the story. Here is the order that wastes the least:
- Chapters 1–4: bank everything. Buy the daily store stock but hand nothing over until you’ve met all twelve characters. Presents never expire, and half your early inventory is off-category for whoever you were planning to gift first.
- Pick three anchors — Denji, Power, Aki. Their preferred categories overlap with the cheapest store goods, and their level 3 weapon parts carry the mid-game difficulty spike. Budget 360 points total, roughly 40 common category-matched gifts, which is about 6,000–10,000 yen of store stock.
- Spend Blood Chips only on anchor rares. At 8–12 chips per mission, a 30-chip exchange is three missions of income. Don’t buy a rare for a character below level 2.
- Convert duplicates immediately. Three commons you’ll never gift are worth one uncommon; three uncommons are worth one rare. Conversion is the only source of rares that doesn’t compete with Blood Chips.
- Post-game: finish the roster. Once story missions are exhausted, bounties refill fastest. Expect roughly 4–6 hours of focused bounty-and-store farming to move the remaining nine characters from level 1 to level 3.
A realistic timeline: three characters at level 5 by the end of the main story (about 18–22 hours of normal play), and a full twelve-character roster at level 3 by around hour 30.
Mistakes That Slow You Down
- Gifting off-category rares. A rare outside a preferred category is worth 15 points — half of a category-matched uncommon, for triple the Blood Chips.
- Chasing level 5 on one favorite character while the rest sit at level 1. Level 3 unlocks are broad and cheap; level 5 unlocks are narrow and expensive.
- Skipping the daily store restock. It is the only unlimited yen-to-points conversion in the game and it takes about twenty seconds per in-game day.
- Buying every Blood Bank offer. You get a choice of three; take the one matching an anchor, not the highest-rarity one.
FAQ
Can I permanently miss a Present?
Chapter-tied mission Presents are one-time only, but nothing required for level 5 is exclusive to them. The store, Blood Bank, bounties, and duplicate conversion all restock indefinitely, so no character can be locked out of a max relationship.
Do relationship levels affect combat?
Only from level 4 onward, through passive bonuses, and at level 5 through partner assists. Levels 1–3 are convenience: dialogue, skill cards, weapon parts, and cosmetics.
Do gift points carry into New Game Plus?
Relationship levels and accumulated points carry over. Chapter-specific Presents and mission rewards reset, which makes a second run the fastest way to top off the characters you neglected the first time.
Is it worth leveling all twelve characters?
Only if you want every story scene. For clearing content, four characters at level 4–5 covers everything the game throws at you. Treat the rest as a collection goal rather than a power goal.
