Nami (One Piece)

Nami (ナミ, Nami) is a fictional character from the anime and manga series One Piece. Nami means "Wave" in Japanese.

In a recent Japanese Fan Poll, Nami was ranked 7th most popular character. She is more popular in the United States, where a 4Kids fan poll ranked her the fourth most popular anime character.

About Nami

Being a member of the Straw Hat Pirates, she has her own bounty of 16 million Belli. She is the second member of the Straw Hat Pirates to appear in the (anime) series, but the third to align herself with the crew, and the fifth to actually join. In the manga, she appears third. Possibly one of the best (or even the best) navigators currently sailing the Grand Line, Nami is more-or-less in charge when the crew is sailing on the Going Merry (Merry Go in the English translations), somewhat fulfilling the roles of treasurer and quartermaster as well (mirroring real-life, where the quartermaster was more or less in charge on pirate ships and the captain being more of a strong fighter whom the crew could put their trust in).

Nami has a tattoo on her left shoulder which represents mikan and pinwheels (a homage to her past), where she used to have a tattoo for being a member of Arlong's Crew. Near the beginning of the series, Nami wore thick, low cut leather boots and a simple blouse. However, during the Arlong Park arc and thereafter, Nami wore open-toed shoes and more revealing outfits (With the tattoo no longer being a secret). She seemed to have abandoned the shoes for high-heeled boots as of Chapter 435. She usually pairs her tops with skirts with rings on them. Her overall physique matured suddenly (though this is, most likely, a simple change in style of artwork).

According to the author (in response to a fan's question), Nami's dress size was 34-22-34. The author has also replied to a fan's question to saying that right now Nami's measurements are as follows: Height 169 B 95 W 55 H 85, though her breasts seem to grow and then "reset" throughout the arcs (this is much more obvious in the manga). He has also said that Nami resembles a cat, that he uses the color orange to represent her, and she smells of mikan and money.

Her nickname, "Cat Burglar", comes from "dorobō neko", which can also mean "manstealer" in Japanese.

Early One Piece

Even before One Piece officially began, Oda had ideas for a Nami-like character.

In the original pilot for One Piece, Romance Dawn: version 1, there was a character called Silk, who was the daughter of a pirate and also abandoned when she was young. Appearance wise, Silk was almost exactly like Nami in both face and dress, although Silk had much longer hair. While some aspects of her personality were close to Nami's, she was still very different.

In Romance Dawn: version 2 there was another Nami-like character called Ann. Ann, like Silk, had clothes similar to Nami's. Ann's personality was much closer to Nami's, but it was still a long way off from the one Nami was ultimately given by Oda.

Personality and Relationships

Along with Nico Robin, Nami is one of the smartest of the Straw Hats and the third smartest character during the East Blue saga according to Oda, the first being Ben Beckman of the Red-Haired pirates and the 2nd being Captain Kuro. She is an excellent navigator and has the ability to recognize and analyze even the slightest changes in the weather through sheer intuition, thus saving the ship and the crew from the very unstable Grand Line weather on multiple occasions. She is also in charge of the money the crew has.

She respects Luffy's qualities as a leader, but often gets angry of his irrational thinking and short attention span, but she trusts him deeply. Even though Nami has deceived the crew, Luffy still trusts her enough to allow her to safe-keep his precious straw hat. Nami is almost always the one who gives orders on the ship (much to the Zoro's resentment) because Luffy's innocent nature prevents him from being able to give orders. She often comically beats or hits her other crewmates for their nonsense, which occur quite often. This may also be caused by traits of other crew members such as Zoro's sleeping, Usopp and Chopper acting childish etc. Acting as the "mother" of the crew, Nami doesn't understand or approve of the boys' often macho attitudes and principles. These are the only situations where Nami doesn't get the final word, as seen when she tried to talk sense into Luffy and Usopp's great fallout.

Nami is greedy and will do anything, aside from endangering her friends, for money, due to her past - After having gathered money all her life, Nami is naturally accustomed to it, stating that after being freed from Arlong, the money is all hers nows, but thinks of her friends as more important. She is very manipulative, and often takes advantage of Sanji for his devotion to her and Usopp to maintain her weapons. Roronoa Zoro tries not to fall for her schemes, but ends up a victim like the rest, usually due to debt. Nami also tries to avoid fights this way and will try to hide in groups or send others before her. However, since the invention of her Clima Tact (A weapon that forms weather patterns, also called the Weather Enforcer in the English dub), she is now seen fighting her own battles instead of becoming the 'easy target', as she doesn't want to be the one being saved anymore.

Her two favorite things are money and mikan (mandarin oranges), often translated to tangerines (the English manga uses "tangerines"), because of her love of her foster mother, Bellemere. It seems she is more fond of her oranges tree than the money; when the crew returned to Water 7 and had their belongings returned to them, Nami was overjoyed at seeing the trees that she hugged one of the tree with tears coming out of her eyes, but did not hug the money like she usually does. And when Franky was talking about what he did with the 200 million belies that he stole, it was Sanji who was upset, hinting that she is becoming less greedy.

Nami's dream is to draw a perfect map of the world, a task not yet accomplished by anyone due to the harsh nature of the oceans in Grand Line. The first map Nami plotted was the island Cocoyashi village is on.

Nami also has an obsession with fashion, as she is never seen wearing the same clothes. This was not present in the early chapters and started after the Captain Kuro arc. This is similar to Bulma, the female main character of Dragon Ball (Eiichiro Oda's favorite manga), who is never seen with the same hairstyle. When Nami goes shopping, she sometimes goes to exquisite boutiques and tries on stuff, just to leave stating that she is searching for something more casual. Nami also appears to have an inhumanly high tolerance for alcohol, even more so than Roronoa Zoro. In Whiskey Peak, she was seen out-drinking 14 different Baroque Works members without showing any signs of drunkenness at all, losing only because she pretended to collapse in order to fool the bounty hunters, possibly because of her determination to win the prize money.

History

Belle-Mère

Nami is an orphan found by Belle-Mère, a female Marine, on a battlefield as an infant. The marine adopted her along with Nojiko, another child, and the three became as close as a real family. However, this ended when the infamous Fish-Man Pirate Arlong took over Cocoyashi Village (or Coco Village in the English language manga and dub), their adopted hometown and imposed a fee on every single adult and child in the village in order to 'live'.

Since Belle-Mère could not pay for her entire family's monthly fee for living, Belle-Mère was used as an 'example' by Arlong to demonstrate to the townspeople what will happen to them if they ever go against him or fail to pay the fee. Belle-Mère is then brutally murdered by a shot from Arlong in front of Nami and Nojiko. Nami was then kidnapped and forced to become a cartographer for Arlong. However, Arlong struck a deal with Nami: if she brought him one hundred million Belli (the form of currency in One Piece), he would free her village.

Nami realised then that if she ever told the citizens of Cocoyashi Village, then she would might be bringing them false hope, as she couldn't possibly guarantee her success, and knew that one day she would might be forced to run away. Although Nojiki eventually told them, Nami lived in the belief that they still hated her for joining Arlong's crew. She then swore upon to never again ever ask anyone for help.

She spent eight years making maps and stealing treasure from Pirates in order to buy back her village.

Meeting Luffy

It was during this time that she met Luffy during the situation with Buggy in Orange Town (as seen in the Buggy the Clown Arc) and temporarily joined up with him with the reasoning that she will get most of the treasure that is found. (in the anime, she met Luffy briefly in the first episode, as he was escaping from a ship she was robbing. However the two did not exchange words until they met again in Orange Town.)

After helping defeat Captain Kuro in Syrup Village (i.e: Captain Kuro arc), and reaching the Baratie restaurant with Luffy, Nami took off with the crew's loot and ship and headed for Arlong Park. Nami was only 7 million beli short of fulfilling her end of the deal, but Arlong shamelessly used Nezumi, a corrupt Marine captain, to steal all of the money, thus ensuring that Nami would forever be in his crew, without breaking his promise.

Later, Luffy arrives and after seeing a distraught Nami in the process of carving the Arlong tattoo off her arm and screaming Arlong's name in anger, he accepts her plea for help. Then along with Sanji, Zoro and Usopp he battles Arlong and his elites and defeats them all. Nami's village is freed, and she rejoins the crew as a permanent member. In her way out of the village, Nami wished to say goodbye to no one. She left the money back in Nojiko's house, and runs onto the Going Merry after stealing all of the villagers' wallets at the same time. This causes certain opinions for Nami to spring up, like Sanji cheering on Nami, Zoro saying that Nami might betray them again, Usopp saying that she hasn't changed, and Luffy laughing.

Recently, Nami is seen lounging by a pool while eavesdropping on Luffy and Koby's conversation with a Den Den Mushi about military technology (such as putting seastone on the bottom of military ships). When she heard them laughing and catching up on old times, she stopped listening to the conversation to give them some privacy.

Recently, in Chapter 435, Nami received her first bounty: 16 Million Belly. Amusingly this puts her above Buggy the Clown, the villain introduced in the same arc as Nami, and on the same level as Captain Kuro, another cat themed character. Out of all the Straw Hats, she is the only one complaining the fact she got a bounty. It is found that the photographer told her he was a W7 reporter so she willingly posed.

When Usopp rejoins the crew, while both he and Luffy are crying over each other, she says, with tears in her eyes, that they aren't that cool.

Recent Chapters

She went to investigate the ghost ship with Sanji and Luffy, and met the gentleman skeleton Brook. When Brook asked to see Nami's panties, she struck him down.

Powers and abilities

Nami is a highly skilled navigator and cartographer. She has the innate ability to sense changes in the weather and can even predict the appearance of the supposedly unpredictable cyclones of the Grand Line. She is also an excellent thief and pickpocket who can steal small items such as keys on light encounters without the victim noticing.

Nami is not as skilled a combatant as some of the Straw Hats, although she is able in wielding a staff, and can take down normal pirates or marines with few problems. She usually ends up fighting a female villainess. She is able to unleash quick and moderately powerful strikes, and during the Alabasta arc and beyond, uses a weather manipulating staff Usopp created for her, the Clima Tact, to fight. The weapon is actually partly used for party tricks, but using certain combinations, Nami turns the tomfoolery of Usopp into a deadly force to be reckoned with, and is able to defeat one of the strongest members of the Baroque Works, Miss Doublefinger (Mr. 1's partner agent, and Baroque Works' second strongest female agent); one of the CP9 members and two of Skypiea's Priests, Hotori and Kotori, with the help of Gan Fall.

Currently, Nami has been given a Dial enhanced Clima-Tact, the "Perfect Clima-Tact", by Usopp. The new weapon was powerful enough to wipe out an entire group of soldiers; with the Perfect Clima-tact, she also managed to defeat CP9's Kalifa, securing her place as one of the crew's most valuable members.

File:Nami climaTact.jpg

Nami using her Perfect Clima Tact

Before receiving her Climatact in the Alabasta Arc, Nami's fighting style was much more deceitful, using her brilliant mind and her good looks to solve her problems. She would shamelessly manipulate one of her crewmates to fight in her place, usually by blackmailing Zoro, charming Sanji, or ordering Luffy around. In the fifth One Piece movie she is even seen posing seductively to get information out of a bartender. She also had excellent luck: situations would arise that kept her out of the line of battles during fights. In a few rare cases, she'd used her looks to distract an opponent from attacking her. Her more manipulative battle-strategies began diminishing during the Alabasta Arc and beyond when she received her Clima-Tact and began to fight her own battles.

Some common techniques include Thunderbolt Tempo/Tempest (using Heat and Cool Balls, a cloud is formed, and by sending a Thunder Ball in, a huge bolt of lightning is summoned) and Mirage Tempo/Tempest (by manipulating the heat of the surrounding, Nami can create illusory copies of herself, which is further augmented by the Perfect Clima Tact's Mirage Tempo Fata Morgana).

See also

• Straw Hat Pirates
• East Blue
• Arlong

External links

• Professional Pirate Thief, a Nami fanlisting