Nami: Help Me! - Scene Breakdown
It was Oscar Wild, I think, who said that ‘Experience is simply the name we give our
mistakes’ - the point being that you can’t create something great without failing first.
Sports, art, languages, writing - name anything you want to become good at, you won’t EVER
make it there without failing first, over and over and over again. And I think that
this is exactly what makes this scene here during the Arlong park arc so amazing, as
it’s the first time we can see Oda improving upon a couple of earlier mistakes he made
and taking a big step forward in his story-telling overall. The chapters for today’s scene
will focus around 76 to 81 and episode 37 of the anime. And you can also watch the scene
in the episode of Nami, which sounds much more like Nami having an emotional outburst,
than the title of a mov- oh… I see what you did there Funimation! However, I gotta
say that the original anime is actual pretty damn good here, so you can choose whichever
you prefer. As usual, let’s start by qu ickly recapping the scene before we look at
what makes it so emotional and why it deserves a spot in our the iconic scene analysis series
- trademark. As always, you can, but really shouldn’t skip the recap, by going to the
time-code up here, and make sure to grab yourself a nice cup of coffee, as I got right here.
Why I drink so much coffee you ask? Well, obviously it’s cause I grind a lot.
The scene takes place shortly after leaving the Baratie and the straw hats chasing after
Nami, who has stolen the Merry to go home. After a first encounter of Zoro with Arlong
and the fishmen, him Luffy and Sanji encounter Nami on the road to Cocoyashi village. As
we have already seen multiple times during the arc, Nami tries to distance herself from
the crew, trying her best to make them leave the island so she can finally fulfil her deal
with Arlong to free her village in exchange for 100 Million Berries and of course also
to protect her new friends. However, at this point she already has saved both Zoro AND
Usopp from the fishman’s hands and so when she tries to convince them that she actually
killed Usopp, Zoro starts towards her to once again expose her facade, as he had done before
at Arlong Park. Sanji, however misinterprets it as Zoro trying to attack her and stops
him. And while Zoro tells him that he understands nothing , he also doesn’t care to explain
Nami’s true intentions to either him or Luffy. Once Nami leaves for her home, Sanji
asks Zoro if he thinks that she really killed Usopp, and Zoro jokes that she actually might
have after he called her ‘Komono’ meaning small thing, to which Sanji immediately becomes
infuriated again. This joke is especially funny in Japanese, as Zoro uses komono in
this panel here in the sense of Nami being a small fry who can’t even let one person
die. Since Komono, literally means small thing however, Sanji immediately takes this as Zoro
referring to her chest size. Something that apparently not only Sanji, but also Oda took
offence in. And so Zoro and Sanji start brawling again, much to the despise of Usopp, who has
finally made his way back after escaping through the water and is caught between the two. Seeing
that Usopp is still alive, all of them now know for sure that Nami is in fact a good
person trying to protect them. Then we get the heart-breaking and quite bloody backstory
of Nami from Nojiko, that finally uncovers the full picture we were missing since first
meeting her in Orange Town. Once we finally know what’s actually going on, we see the
Marines arriving at Nami’s house. Having been tipped off by Arlong, they have come
to collect the almost 100 Million Berries that Nami had collected over the last 8 years.
In this moment, Nami learns from Gen that the entire village had known about Nami’s
true intentions all along and that they simply were trying to give her an easy way out from
her burden. Infuriated and feeling betrayed, Nami storms to Arlong Park to confront the
fishman, who only laughs in her face. After what happened, the villagers have seen enough
and decide finally to take up arms against Arlong, determined to get revenge for Nami
and themselves. When returning to the village, Nami tries to stop them, but they have made
up their mind. And so, after seeing her people marching towards certain death and being on
the verge of loosing everything she has worked and suffered for, the disillusioned Nami becomes
enraged by the arlong tattoo on her shoulder and in a heartbreaking and horrifying moment,
starts jamming her knife into it. Before she can deal any more harm to herself however,
Luffy stops her. It's in this moment of greatest desperation that she finally turns to Luffy,
and in an extremely emotional moment, asks him for help. It's heartbreaking. And when
Luffy enthusiastically agrees, and makes his march to Arlong Park with Sanji, Zoro and
Usopp it's enthralling to know that Arlong will get the justice he deserves. As I mentioned
at the beginning of this video, there is one thing in particular that makes this scene
and the overarching Arlong Park arc so special in the larger context of the narrative, and
that is the storytelling here and how Oda placed this Arc into the structure of his
story. I believe that Arlong Park is a gigantic step forward in terms of Oda’s storytelling
skills and improves on a number of elements in the earlier East Blue arcs. What makes
the climactic moment with Nami so impactful, is that it has been worked towards for a long
time. In a way, you could say that Arlong Park is the very first mini saga in the story
that has been spun into most of the previous arcs.It’s of course is not comparable with
for example the Yonko Saga, spanning from Fishman Island all the way to Wano, as the
build-up is way smaller and also a lot more subtle. However, it is the first time that
Oda proves his talent for long-term planning and foreshadowing that become more and more
pronounced throughout the plot. The hints pointing to Arlong Park are relatively small,
but they are there. For instance, when Luffy first meets Nami she tells him that she’s
going to earn 100 million berries for a certain purpose. Or during the Baratie arc, Nami abandons
the crew and steals the Merry after seeing a bounty poster of a mysterious pirate named
Arlong. It’s not much, but it gets our attention, and these long-term references culminating
in Arlong Park create way deeper resonance and impact than many of the earlier mini-arcs.
And so it’s not for nothing that it’s still one of the most popular One Piece arcs
of all time. Because, with Arlong Park, Oda proves to us that you don't necessarily need
world-shattering, history-changing stakes in order to be invested in the conflict at
hand; all you need is some damn-good story-telling. Now there are two, well maybe two and a half
things in particular, that I think Oda has improved on in this arc compared to the first
four: Backstory, battle and placement.
For Zoro and Usopp, Oda had yet to figure out how to incorporate a backstory properly
into the narrative. Both are revealed AFTER the events of their arc have already taken
place, and feel almost like an afterthought to the central conflict. However when reaching
the Baratie I think, he began to understand the importance of tying the backstory of a
new character to the conflict at hand. By learning about Sanji's past and his connection
to Zeff, we understand why it's important to him to protect the Baratie and his mentor,
but it still had no real connection to neither Don Krieg nor Mihawk. And so on my first watch
I was a little confused and worried that Nami wasn't even getting a standard backstory like
the other crew members. The pattern seemed clear. Luffy and co. land on an island, find
a new crew member, we get a glimpse of their backstory, Luffy defeats the bad guy and the
crew moves on +1. So I began to worry that Nami would be glossed over and underused like
female characters often are in this type of series. However as it runs out, by Arlong
Park, Oda finally had figured out how to use the characters’ backstories to his advantage.
And so, I was relieved when I realised that Arlong Park would be Nami’s arc and that
we’d finally get to see her backstory. And what a backstory it was. And so, when Luffy
defeats Arlong and destroys the grotesque castle that he built for himself, it isn't
just vaguely related to Nami's backstory, it is the resolution to it. Not only did Luffy
knock out the man who had tormented and tortured her for the past 8 years of her life, but
he destroyed the room Nami worked in for so many years along with Arlong Park itself,
the symbol of oppression that had been looming over the citizens of the island all this time.
The events of Arlong Park, and the reveal of Nami's backstory have to occur simultaneously
because they are essentially the same conflict. One can't happen without the other. And from
here on out, Oda has pretty much carried the success of this new formula into every single
new Arc where we met a new straw hat: Chopper’s connection to Wapol, Vivi’s connection to
Crocodile, Franky’s & Robin’s connection to the world government, Brook’s connection
to Moria and finally Jinbei’s connection to Hody and Arlong, who is actually name-dropped
for the first time here in the Arc - going full circle here. To maybe illustrate this
point a bit further, when you look back to Robin’s rescue at Ennis Lobby, it actually
comes pretty close to this moment here, arguably a bit better and more creatively executed,
but pretty much the same formula: Trying to distance themselves from the crew to protect
them, but ultimately accepting Luffy’s love and asking to be saved - plus the epic walk
. And that already brings me to my second or actually first and a half point - one and
a half point? One point five point? My next point! - placement.
This scene between Luffy and Nami and the other straw hats is not an isolated string
of events, but is re-used and referenced by Oda over and over again and woven into the
larger fabric of the story. The events of Arlong Park keep being relevant as the story
progresses, as we meet more and more Fishmen, like Jinbei and Tom that actually seem to
be anything BUT the cruel monster Arlong represented. And once we arrive on fishman island after
the time skip, Oda turns our entire perspective on the arc on its head. As Arlong and his
men were introduced as the first non-human race, Oda made us believe that the fishmen
were highly racist, spouting racial slurs and basing their cruel behaviour towards Nami
and her people on their racial superiority. However, we very quickly learn that the truth
is actually the exact opposite: The fishmen are actually the ones who have suffered for
centuries under racial oppression and slavery by the hands of the humans and Arlong and
his men were the pitiful and dark result of discrimination and prosecution with a quite
tragic backstory. And so, looking back, the once intimidating and seemingly unbeatable
fishmen now look like weak and helpless rejects who tried to take revenge on the humans by
leaving the grand line and enforcing their will on some of the most vulnerable people
they could find. The way Oda flips everything we know about fishmen on its head is incredible.
Arlong park turns out to be a quite depressing symbol for Sabaody Park as an aspirational
dream of the young and oppressed - but still full of hatred - fishman, looking for acceptance.
This twist is actually well foreshadowed by Oda through the character of Hachan, who is
already hinted at to be nice and naive when bringing Zoro into the village, despite him
being human and coming strolling out of Arlong Park. Later we get an entire cover story for
him and finally meet him again as an ally at Sabaody. And so the entire Arlong Park
arc feels like a organic piece of narration and world building in the larger context of
the story, that makes this moment between Nami and the straw hats just the more powerful,
something that is missing from previous arcs, though Oda admittedly found ways to reference
them again later on during Luffy’s backstory or Sanji’s blackmail during Whole Cake.
But it’s not quite as smooth as Arlong Park, since Oda clearly already had the plot threat
with the fishmen planned & foreshadowed here. Now the third thing that I think Oda does
wonderfully in this scene is - battle. Something that this scene manages to do better
than the Arcs before is bring out the straw hats as a real crew and collective. Up until
now, it was mostly Luffy beating someone’s ass and occasionally Zoro jumping in to fight
someone. Since One Piece is a world of pirates, it makes sense that each villain would have
a crew of their own to contend with. Arlong Park is the first arc that truly utilised
this to its fullest capacity as Zoro, Sanji and Usopp all face off against a different
one of Arlong's officers and get the chance to prove themselves as worthy members. Despite
being grievously wounded by Mihawk, Zoro is able to stay on his feet long enough to defeat
Hachi and then fend off Arlong while Sanji goes to save the stuck Luffy. Sanji is able
to keep his head enough to fight off a fishman in the water and come out alive. And even
Usopp, who at the time clearly is the weakest of the group, manages to take down one of
Arlong's strongest men. And then, of course, Luffy also beats Arlong. All of this starts
with the epic walk to Arlong Park in this moment. And the reason this works so well
here also goes beyond Nami's salvation hinging on each individual Strawhat victory. Each
member in this arc also has something to prove for themselves; each victory is not just a
win for the cause but validation for the individual against an enemy that has been built up as
the strongest so far in the story. Once again, we see this patter on a larger scale in Enies
Lobby . Robin's salvation is dependent on each Strawhat winning, but each of them is
trying to prove something for themselves.
As you can see, storytelling is a gigantic factor in what makes this scene so fantastic.
And of course that goes for all other scenes after this as well, but I really thought it
was worth pointing out here, as it was such a big step up from previous arc. There are
of course also a lot of other aspects that work fantastically I this scene. The double
twist Oda does with her character, where at first she tries to pretend like she was evil
all along, but then turns out to have been her true self all along, as well as the way
Luffy and Zoro show her that she can’t fool them with Zoro jumping into the water and
making her save him as well as Luffy simply waiting for her to ask him for help, are fantastically
portrayed in the dialog and body language. And besides Arlong Park & Luffy destroying
Nami’s room, there is also a lot more great symbolism here. For instance Nami’s anger,
first at her helplessness against evil, then against the evil itself, takes the form of
her dagger, which Oda explicitly quite gory way shows her stabbing straight into her tattoo,
a symbol of her emotional imprisonment and Arlong’s tyranny. Similarly, Nami crying
and asking for help, after promising as a child she would never cry again & ask anyone
for help shows us how Luffy manages to save people and give them hope. And in this scene,
he of course shows this through his straw hat, that is Luffy’s biggest treasure and
that he will let no-one under under circumstances wear. And yet he gives it to Nami showing
her his trust and that she is just as important to her as his hat. I think it encompasses
everything that makes this moment here so fantastic.
And since we learned in this video how Oda drastically improved his backstories in this
Arc, why not test that theory with the next straw hat? Because this is not only one of
my favourite moments, but also has been requested a bunch of time, which I think shows hat you
guys have great taste! And so, we’ll be looking at that scene in the next video. So
stay tuned for that! Thanks guys. Peace.