Nami

Nami is a pirate and the navigator of the Straw Hat Pirates.

Personality
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.

Nami is greedy and will do anything, aside from endangering her friends, for money. She is in charge of the money the crew has and money wise is the most responsible money spender on the crew, as well as using tactics to con others out of money.

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. 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.

Relationships
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.

She also 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. The crew member she seems to get on best with is Robin.

Back home, she has comes to terms with the idea Bellemere was her mother and Nojiko her sister. She is glad to have known Bellemere and truly grateful for her sister who has supported her throughout since their mother's death. Genzo also has become a father figure to her and Nojiko and he was more concerned about the pose on her bounty would attract perverts then bounty hunters. The rest of the village (though were mad at her stealing their wallets when she left) continue to adore her even though she is gone.

Abilities and Powers
Nami is a highly skilled navigator as well as being a talented 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.

Compared to her fellow Straw Hats, she is not as skilled in combat as they are lacking the strength and skill needed to defeat most foes. This led her to remain as a supporting member of the crew rather then a main fighter. She shamelessly manipulated one of her crewmates to fight in her place, usually by blackmailing Zoro, charming Sanji, or ordering Luffy around.

Weapons
She relied mainly on a standard wooden staff throughout the East Blue saga and leading up to the Alabasta arc. Later, Usopp invents for her a weapon called the "Clima Tact" that allowed her to fight in a major battle for the first time in an unsupportive role and landed her first major victory against Miss Doublefinger. Though this did not mean she stopped using her old tactics she implied before the Arabasta arc.

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 and she also managed to defeat CP9's Kalifa, securing her place as one of the crew's most valuable members.

Past Story
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, she 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 after he noticed the quality of her maps at such a young age. However, Arlong struck a deal with Nami: if she brought him one hundred million berries (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.

Present Story
It was during this time that she met Monkey D. Luffy during the situation with Buggy the Clown in Orange Town (as seen in the Buggy the Clown Arc) and temporarily joined up him with the reasoning that she will get most of the treasure that is found.

After reaching the Baratie restaurant with Luffy and the others, Nami took off with the crew's loot and ship and headed for Arlong Park. Nami was only 7 million berries 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 tatoo 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.

At Skypiea, Nami acquired her Waver, which she used while they were still at Skypiea.

After Enies Lobby
Chapter 430: With the Going Merry, everyone has managed to escape Enies Lobby safely. However, after escaping, Iceburg arrives in a Galley-La just in time to pick up the Strawhat Pirates as the Merry suddenly breaks apart. Luffy then gives the Going Merry a viking funeral by burning it as the crew tearfully says goodbye.

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 Kairouseki 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.

Current Events (Spoilers)
After sailing for some time on the Thousand Sunny, Nami and the rest of the crew came across a mysterious barrel floating on the ocean. Upon opening it, a flash shot up from it. A mysterious storm then came out of nowhere. Nami, using her skills as navigator, navigated the ship out of harm's way. Nami and the rest of the crew found themselves in the presence of a ghost ship.

Wanting to explore for treasure, Nami decided to tag along with Luffy who decided to explore the ship. Sanji decided to tag along with them in order to keep an eye on Nami. There they met a skeleton named Brook whose rude behavior left a very bad impression on Nami. Luffy then all of sudden asked Brook to join his crew which in turn the skeleton accepted. This shocked both Nami and Sanji. After climbing back down to the Thousand Sunny, Nami decided to join for dinner for which Brook decided to also join. Over dinner, Nami learned of the skeleton's past. Just as Brook was about to perform before Nami and the rest of the crew after dinner, a ghost appeared and some clanking sounds were heard. These sounds were caused by the gates of the island that suddenly appeared, Thriller Bark, closing. These events prompted Brook to head to the island before Nami and the rest of the Straw Hats' eyes.

With Luffy's resolve to go to the island, Nami couldn't do anything about it. At that momment, Franky then decided to show the crew a little present, the Mini Merry II. This pleased the crew very much that Nami decided to take out for test drive with Chopper and Usopp. However while sailing on the little boat, Nami and her companions accidentally bumped into the moat of Thriller Bark and fell from the Mini Merry II into it. There, the three met the Cerberus which chased them until they hid in a tree. In the tree, the three met Hildon who decided to take them to met Dr. Hogback.

After riding a carriage with Hildon through some woods filled with all sorts of stitched-up creatures, Nami and her companions were left in the middle of a cemetery. There, they were attacked by some Zombies which they luckily escaped from. They then came across Hogback's mansion and met with the good doctor and his maid, Cindry.

After dinner with the good doctor in which the three asked about Brook, Nami decided to take a bath. In the middle of it however, she was attacked by an invisible thing. Luckily, Usopp came in the bathroom and drove it away. After the incident in the bathroom, Nami and her companions found out that the paintings and taxidermy in the dining room were all Zombies. Fortunately, the three escaped through a secret door before the Zombies could catch them.

Beyond the secret door, Nami and her companions found themselves in a room filled with Cindry's pictures. Through a newspaper article that Nami found, the three learned that Cindry was an actress that died ten years ago. Just as they were about to leave, the three stumbled across a treasure chest. Nami was very eager to find treasure that her mood completely changed from that when she learned about the previous revelation. Inside however, was a horrific Jack in a box that frightened the three out of the room.

As the three were running through the hallways of the mansion from more painting Zombies, a mysterious bodyguard decided to chase them.

Major Battles

 * Nami and Luffy vs. Buggy
 * Nami and Usopp vs. Black Cat Pirates
 * Nami vs. Mr. 3, Miss Goldenweek, Mr. 5, and Miss Valentine
 * Nami vs. Miss Doublefinger
 * Nami and Gan Fall vs. Hotori and Kotori
 * Nami vs. Kalifa

Filler Battles

 * Nami vs. Erik the Whirlwind
 * Nami vs. Honey Queen
 * Nami and Usopp vs. Horn Eaters
 * Nami and Chopper vs. Touma
 * Nami, Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, and Robin vs. Governor

Early One Piece
Nami's design and personality (and arguably her background story as well) is the result of a long process with several other similar characters. The first apparent character in the process of developing towards Nami was Silk in Romance Dawn V.1, who was then followed by another girl called Ann in Romance Dawn V.2. Each one of the girls had her own personality which seemed to have been placed into Nami's overall design.

Translation and Dub Issues
Mostly, Nami did not suffer any major alterations from Japanese to English dub by 4Kids. However, since the Arlong Park arc, Nami has been the subject of various edits.

The most common edit, as seen in the Alabasta arc when she wore a Dancer's outfit, was to remove any cleavage on her outfits; although all the female characters had their cleavage and breast lines removed. In line with this edit was the add of a bathing suit to her body during the bath scene at the end of the arc. Another such scene where she used her "happiness punch" against the men who were peeking at her and Vivi from the wall separating the male and female baths. One major edit saw the alteration Nami has suffered was the absence of her stabbing the tattoo on her left arm when she is mad at Arlong.

Trivia

 * "Nami" is Japanese for "wave".
 * Her two favorite things are money and mikan (mandarin oranges), often translated to tangerines, as is the case in the English manga.
 * 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.
 * 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.

Related Articles

 * Straw Hat Pirates