Bell-mère

Bellemere (ベルメール Berumēru) was Nami and Nojiko's adoptive mother, seen in a flashback during the Arlong arc.

Personality
In her youth she was a renowned trouble maker. While her actions to join the Marines were a shock to all the other villagers, they all cared deeply for her warefare despite the trouble she had always given them. Due to her past, her descision to adopt her daughters led them to fear the childrens own warefare. m However Bellemere was determined to show she had grown into a mature adult who was capable of such resposiblities.

Her history gave her an advantage in dealing with Nami's own antics at times, however she could not change the fact that she and her daughters were not related by blood and therefore was unable to handle Nami rejecting her family completely. Neverless she cared about her daughters deeply, she would give her daughters as much she she could afford to often at her own expense. Her only regret she had was she could not give them everything they wanted in life.

She had a funny relationship with Genzo above all other villagers. She was able to manipulate him through a few seductive moves that leave him extremely embarrassed. Genzo knew her past and dubbed her the "Little Thug" in response to her troubles.

Bellemere the Marine


One day she and fellow Marines were sent to an island to fight some pirates causing trouble there. The fight was bloody, leaving many dead and destroying the village the two sides were fighting in. Bellemere lay wounded and dying, she decided that it was okay to let herself die there and then. However just as she was giving up and letting herself go, Nojiko appeared carrying Nami. Bellemere and Nojiko were lifted by by Nami's unawareness of what had happened and Bellemere took the two back to her village. Upon arrival, a storm had broken out over Bellemere's home island and the two children had grown ill. She insisted the two girls get treatment before her. later after all three of them were better again, she declared (with many protest from the other villagers) that she was old enough and mature enough to look after the girls herself.

After the Storm
Bellemere lived on her orange grove with the girls. While Bellemere had very little income, she gave everything to her girls and survived by eating the mandarin oranges she grew. One day Bellemere scolded Nami when she got caught stealing (Nami stole a book because she knew they were poor), shortly after Nami revealled to Bellemere why she stole the book - she was studying navigation. Bellemere applauded Nami's first drawing of the island as the first step of her dream to map the world and put faith into Nami that she really could do it.

However while some things were avoided by Bellemere's money problems, others did not. One day Nami was given one of Nojiko's dresses by Bellemere (who simply turned the sunflower on it into a lion) and Nami was offended. Nami wanted her own clothes not Nojiko's hand-me-downs. Nami wouldn't acknowledge the three of them as a real family, and ran off, saying that she wished she were adopted by rich people. Bellemere realised she wasn't acting like an adult back there, she decided to spare some money and prepare Nami's favourite meal even though it would hit her budget. She sent Nojiko to fetch Nami while she prepared the meal.

Arrival of Arlong
That same day Arlong invaded the island and found her home, Bellemere tried to fend them off but was quickly subdued. When asked for the fee needed to stay alive, it turned out all the money Bellemere had would either save herself or her two daughters. Things would've been okay, as Arlong was unaware of the two girls' existence, but Bellemere gave it to her two girls as she would rather have died than not call herself a mother. To that end, Arlong shot her right in front of the eyes of her two adopted daughters, but not before Bellemere apologized to Nami for not being richer, and not being able to buy the girls whatever they wanted. With that, she said her final words to the girls: "I love you."

Translation and Dub Issues
Although Bellemare's role in the story was very important, in the 4Kids English anime, Bellemare's role was tone down to an background character. Arlong's gun was edited out by enlarging his hand to make it look like he's pointing at her and his text was change so he said she was sent to the dungeon. She still dies in the 4Kids dub and the references to her being shot in front of her daughters is completely unreferenced.

The word Mace was removed from her shirt constantly. Another alteration was to remove all images of her smoking through digital editing

Trivia

 * Belle-mère is French for "stepmother".
 * In a recent Japanese Fan Poll, Bellemere is currently ranked the 32nd most popular character in One Piece.