Nami (One Piece)

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Nami
Nami, from the anime and manga series One Piece.
Name in Japanese	ナミ
Name in Romaji (Hepburn)	Nami
English Name	Nami
Epithet	Thieving pussycat Nami ("dorobou neko" means both burglar cat and seductress)
Age	18
Birthday	July 3rd
Height	169 cm (5' 6½”)
Voice Actor (4Kids)	Kerry Williams
Japanese Seiyu	Akemi Okamura (Episodes 1-69, 79+) Wakana Yamazaki (Episodes 70-78) Megumi Toyoguchi (OVA only)
Appears In	Original Manga
First Appearance	Manga Chapter #8, Anime Episode #1
Species	Human
Bounty	16 000 000 Belli
One Piece Characters

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, making her the least popular member of the Straw Hats in Japan (unless Franky joins the crew, as he is ranked 13th). She is more popular in the United States, where a 4Kids fan poll ranked her the fourth most popular anime character.

Contents 1 About Nami 2 Early One Piece 3 Personality and Relationships 4 History 4.1 Belle-Mère 4.2 Meeting Luffy 4.3 Recent Chapters 5 Powers and abilities 6 References 7 See also 8 External links

[edit] 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. 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 the chief cartographer for 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 is almost always seen wearing open-toed shoes and more revealing outfits. 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). ^[1] 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.^[2][3]

Her nickname, "Thieving pussycat", comes from "dorobou neko", which can also mean "manstealer" in Japanese.

[edit] Early One Piece

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

In the orginal 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 from Nami.

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.

[edit] 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.^[4] She is an excellent navigator and has the ability to recognize and analyze even the slightest changes in the weather through sheer intuition (no equipment required), 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. In such situations, she sometimes tends to get into violent outbreaks. This may also be caused by traits of other crew members such as Roronoa 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, and after being freed from Arlong she finally makes some money herself. However, she has stated that if she should choose between her money and friends, she'd choose her friends. 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' - she was tired of being the one that should be saved.

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.

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, Nami wasn't the one that got upset but it was Sanji. It indicates money is second only to her prized trees.

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 appears to have a high tolerance for alcohol, similar to Roronoa Zoro, and likes to party along with the crew.

[edit] History

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

[edit] 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 temporaily joined up with him with the reasoning that she will get most of the treasure that is found.

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.

[edit] Recent Chapters

Nami and Chopper had re-united with Sanji, Zoro, and Sogeking in the tunnel underneath the Bridge of Hesitation, along with the sea train conductor Kokoro and her grand-daughter Chimney, but the tunnel was flooding with water and all of them were in danger of drowning.

Just when the entire group was doomed for a watery grave, Kokoro emerged as a gigantic mermaid-like creature. They landed on the escape ship Franky and Robin are on, which, as soon as she woke up, hugged Robin immediately afterwards. She and the rest of the crew were then waiting on the escape ship for Luffy to finish his fight as they faced off against over 200 Marine captains and lieutenants. After Luffy finally beat Lucci, the marines destroyed their escape ship and were about to end Luffy as well, since he was too bruised to move. Nami and the crew suddenly hear a voice calling them out to the sea. With no time to waste, the Strawhats with Kokoro and the others (who were saved in the nick of time by Sanji) jump down towards the sea to land on the mysteriously reappeared Going Merry. Using her expert skill in navigation she guided Merry around the whirlpools--a feat only once witnessed in the Davy back fight. After Iceberg arrived on a Galley-La ship just as Merry started to fall apart, she and the rest of the crew bid Merry a emotional final farewell as Luffy set her ablaze in a viking funeral. She was seen depressed when she assumed she lost her trees, the 100 million Belli and their other stuff. However, fortunately the people of Water 7 had confiscated their stuff earlier when they thought they are the assassins that tried to assassinate Iceburg. Nami was overjoyed to get back her trees. Surprisingly, she apparently wasn't as concerned for the 100 million Belli.

Nami is later 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 recieved her first bounty: 16 Million Belli. Amusingly this puts her above Buggy the Clown, the villain introduced in the same arc as Nami. Out of all the Straw Hats, she is the only one complaining the fact she got a bounty.

[edit] 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 to protect herself. 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, after Miss All-Sunday); 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.

Before receiving her Climatact in the Alabasta Arc, Nami's fighting style was much more deceitful. She usually shamelessly manipulates one of her crewmates to fight in her place, usually by blackmailing Zoro, charming Sanji, or ordering Luffy around. She also has extreme luck, situation arise and put out of the line of battle during fights. In a few rare cases, she'd used her looks to distract an opponent from attacking her. This manipulative attitude disappeared from the Alabasta Arc and beyond as she 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 Attack List for more

[edit] References