Nami (One Piece)

 is a fictional character in the "One Piece" franchise created by Eiichiro Oda. She is based on Ann and Silk, two characters from Oda's previous manga "Romance Dawn". She is introduced as a thief and pickpocket who possesses cartographical, meteorological and navigational skills. At first, she is a subordinate of the fishman Arlong, but she is eventually freed of this service and permanently joins Monkey D. Luffy for her dream to write the complete map of the Grand Line.
In the series, Nami is the Straw Hat Pirates' navigator, who dreams of drawing a map of the entire world. Despite her initial distrust of pirates, Nami eventually changes her mind after being around Luffy and the rest of the crew. Nami is depicted as an intelligent girl, who has an obsession of obtaining money. She is able to use her three-sectioned staff and use her climate skills to create powerful attacks; the most prominent of these staff weapons is the Clima-Tact, in which she manipulates the climate to create weather-based attacks.
Conception and creation.
Nami was based on two of Eiichiro Oda's earlier characters named Silk and Ann, two characters from Oda's one-shot manga "Romance Dawn". In these stories, Silk and Ann were parentless and had tragic pasts. Oda designed Nami as a human girl. At first, Oda wanted Nami to use a large axe, but the author replaced it with a pole-based weapon.
Design.
Nami is recognized by her fashion styles, which changes throughout "One Piece". She was first introduced wearing a white-and-blue striped shirt, an orange mini-skirt and orange boots. Throughout the series, Nami is commonly seen wearing a shirt or bikini top, a skirt and high-heeled sandals. Nami often wears blue tattoos throughout the course of the series; the first is a symbol of Arlong's crew which is later removed and replaced with a symbol of a tangerine and pinwheel on her left bicep. Eventually Nami starts wearing earrings and has her hair, once just barely shoulder-length, grown down to the middle of her back, while usually wearing bikini tops with blue jeans. Concerning her ethnic appearance, Oda revealed that he imagines Nami to be of Swedish descent, albeit in a real world context.
Voice actresses.
In the Japanese version of the entire "One Piece" anime series, and later spin-offs, Nami has been voiced by Akemi Okamura. In 2001, Okamura temporarily left the series due to her pregnancy; Wakana Yamazaki acted as a substitute for episodes 70-78. In the OVA "Defeat the Pirate Ganzack!", Nami was voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi. In 4kids Entertainment's dub of the anime, Nami is voiced by Kerry Williams, and in Funimation Entertainment's dub of the anime, Nami is voiced by Luci Christian.
Abilities.
Nami possesses several abilities. She can tell climate changes and draw sea charts. She is also a pickpocket. During the early part of the series, Nami possesses a three-sectioned bo staff until Usopp creates a variation of her staff known as the , which can control the weather at will. Later, Usopp upgrades her weapon to the , using Dials to increase her attacks.
Eventually, Nami adds the Sorcery Clima-Tact (Sorcery Climate Baton in the Viz manga and Funimation subs) with Weatheria's technology, which not only has improved abilities, but can also be used for other uses such as producing Milky Clouds for riding across. As with her original staff, these three weapons are also tri-sectional. Later, Usopp gives Nami an improved Sorcery Clima-Tact model she wanted him to make (which he had Franky help him a little bit). Using the knowledge he acquired over the timeskip with the plant-based Pop Greens, Usopp combined this with the Weatheria technology Nami provided him with and designed the new Sorcery Clima-Tact to be smaller and more compact than the previous models. Instead, it uses the Pop Green's growth abilities for the staff to extend and contract, through the use of squeezing or releasing the handle. This improvement also allows Nami to now be able to directly attack with her staff from a distance. Nami later teamed up with Big Mom's thundercloud-based homie Zeus, eventually forcing him to become her servant, and is currently part of her arsenal, now living inside her Clima-Tact.
Appearances.
In "One Piece".
Nami first appears in the manga chapter , first published in Japan's "Weekly Shōnen Jump" magazine on September 22, 1997. She first appears as a thief stealing treasure, befriending Luffy in the process along with Zoro and Usopp. However, she eventually returns to Cocoyashi Village, her hometown, to meet up with Arlong, a racist fishman, when Sanji joins his crew. Luffy and the others learn of her past from her sister Nojiko. Nami and Nojiko are adopted on a war zone by the Marine officer Bellemere and taken to the village, raising them as her own. However, when Arlong arrives at the village, he kills Bellemere and forces Nami to become his cartographer. Nami harbors a deep resentment against Arlong for this. Realizing that Arlong is working for the Marines to cover his tracks, Nami turns on the fishman. Luffy and the others successfully defeat Arlong, freeing the village as a result. Nami rejoins the crew as they sail off to the Grand Line to pursue her dream of writing sea charts.
During the crew's journey, she meets Nefertari Vivi and becomes a close friend. However, after Nami falls ill, she is healed at Drum Island; there, she meets Chopper, who joins his crew. While visiting Alabasta, she confronts Miss Doublefinger and defeats her before Nico Robin joins the crew. When the Straw Hats rescues Robin at Enies Lobby, Nami gets a bounty on her head with the rest of the crew. When the Straw Hats travels to Thriller Bark, Nami is kidnapped by the zombie Absalom, who tries to force her to marry him, but Sanji eventually rescues her. At Sabaody Archipelago, Nami forgives Hatchan, a former member of Arlong's crew, while eating his takoyaki.
After being separated from the crew by Bartholomew Kuma, Nami ends up on Weatheria, another sky island. Two years later, Nami reunites with Luffy and the others and they head to Fishman Island, but get separated again. Nami regroups with the Straw Hats and meet up with Jimbei in the Sea Forest. After learning that Jimbei sent Arlong into the East Blue, Nami reveals that - apart from her resentment towards Arlong - she has no resentment towards fishmen. She uses her "Mirage Tempo" technique to help the Straw Hats and Jimbei to defeat the New Fishman Pirates while using her techniques she acquired from Weatheria to defeat some of them. After sending Luffy, Zoro and Sanji to retrieve stolen treasure from Caribou, she is outraged to learn that the three has taken the treasure to Big Mom, the island's protector. When the crew travels to Punk Hazard, Nami is captured and says that she will save the captive children and look for the beheaded samurai's son.
When Nami escapes with Sanji, Franky, and Chopper with the children, Trafalgar Law uses his devil fruit powers to swap the bodies of the four crew members. Nami is in Franky's body with Sanji in her own. Nami is later captured by Caesar Clown, but escapes with the others and later is swapped into Sanji's body (since Sanji was away at the time), before she later gets her own body back and then punishing Sanji due to a misunderstanding of her assuming that Sanji stripped while in her body. She later prevents Caesar's escape with Usopp's help.
In Dressrosa, Nami stayed on the Thousand Sunny to guard Caesar. Due to Big Mom's forces also targeting him, Nami and half of the crew were forced to head to Zou to avoid creating more problems for the Dressrosa mission. In Zou, Nami learns that Sanji is a member of the Vinsmoke Family and is forced to go with the representatives from Big Mom's forces. Out of guilt, Nami decides to join Luffy's team bound for Totto Land to save Sanji.
In other media.
Nami has made several appearances in other media, including, but not limited to, every "One Piece" licensed electronic video game to date, including "Jump Super Stars" and "Jump Ultimate Stars". In 2006, she is featured in the "Dragon Ball"/"One Piece"/"Naruto" crossover game "Battle Stadium D.O.N.". In addition to her in-game appearances, Nami has also been featured and mentioned in some songs. "Music" features Nami singing about herself listening to music while chasing her dreams. "Between the Wind" features Nami singing about weather and drawing sea charts.
Reception.
Nami ranked in the Top 10 of all three "Shōnen Jump" character popularity polls. Her backstory has been found to be a "touching story" as it "unfolds with a lot of emotion" by Mania Entertainment writer, Jarred Pine. Pine also mentioned Nami was his favorite character from the series, and satisfied with how the manga showed her past. While reviewing the eighth DVD from Viz Media, Activeanime mentioned Nami is one of the best characters from the series as "She’s got guts, smarts, and can heft a mean punch when needed". Like Pined, Activeanime liked Nami's background and added that his "itty bitty heart went out to her". Nami was ranked as #28 in a survey conducted by Newtype Japan for Favorite Anime Heroine in 2002. In the SPJA 2008, Nami was nominated in the category "Best Female Character".