- [Narrator] Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece.
And today, it's time to talk about one of the most important
issues facing the series as we know it,
which is, of course, the true power
of Nami's Happiness Punch.
Don't even pretend that you've never thought about this.
And we've left this topic untouched for far, far too long,
and, quite frankly, I think it's almost pointless
to engage in any discussion regarding power
or strength or general combat,
without having an acute understanding
of this particular technique.
An understanding that I'm sure will be no problem
for you dear viewer given how intelligent,
good looking, and willing you are to subscribe
to the Grand Line Review.
The latter point of which will grant you
regular One Piece content uploaded
straight into your YouTube feed.
Sounds good, yes?
But Happiness Punch is a pretty shockingly
powerful ability held by Nami,
and fans of my previous videos will know that I have,
in all seriousness, labeled Nami as the most potent source
of raw power within the crew.
Although you may have thought that I was talking
about the Clima-Tact,
Quite specifically the Zeus augmented Clima-Tact.
But in any case, you would be wrong
because Nami may, very well, have something even better.
And as a result, we are here to analyze
just how destructive this ability is,
in comparison to other well-known powers
of devastation on the planet.
But if you're asking yourself
why we're doing this in the first place,
then hello, you must be new here.
Welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece
and I mean everything One Piece.
So let's get right into it with a basic explanation
of what Happiness Punch works.
Now to the amateur untrained eye,
this technique consists of Nami dropping her towel
and exposing herself, causing those within viewing range
to collapse due to a fearsome nosebleed.
And just in case you're unfamiliar with Japanese media,
nosebleeds are kind of like a narrative
shorthand for arousal.
The theory is that arousal increases blood flow,
eventually reaching a tipping point
and as such, viciously releasing through the nose holes.
Which is actually quite important
because I suppose the theory behind targets
being knocked down is blood loss,
which we have seen an extreme case of with Sanji
immediately post-timeskip,
although this was not a result of Happiness Punch.
Thankfully, that is, because if it was,
then Sanji would most likely be dead.
But the first time we saw Happiness Punch in action
was during the Alabasta Arc,
where King Cobra, rather questionably, revealed the location
of the women's baths, despite the fact
that his 16 year old daughter was in there at the time.
And that's right, pre-timeskip Vivi was 16.
So just remember that the next time you see
those swirly boobs things.
But from here Nami decided to reward
and/or punish those who decided to peek in,
thus activating her Happiness Punch
and sending everyone flying back
onto the floor of the men's baths.
And in addition to this,
she also charged each individual
100,000 Berries for the experience
of being hit by this deadly attack.
Meaning that Happiness Punch does have a secondary
feature as a financial generation tool,
which will be importance
maybe to this discussion slightly later.
But for now, this might not seem like a lot,
however there is some key information
to take away from this initial performance.
Firstly, like I said before,
Happiness Punch is a Nami exclusive technique,
and requires her sole activation,
which you might think has entirely to do with her body.
However, that is not true.
And we know this because at the very beginning
of the Alabasta Arc, a certain Bon Clay turned himself
into a Nami clone through his devil fruit,
the Mane Mane no Mi,
and as is common in One Piece,
he then proceeded to expose her body
in a very similar fashion to that of Happiness Punch.
And while it did have an effect,
it was certainly not the knock out blow
that Happiness Punch is capable of.
So this is important to note
because it becomes apparent that the visual imagery
the move generates is simply not enough
on it's own and it does require Nami's intentional
activation to achieve full effect.
Speaking of full effects though,
when it comes to examining such power,
there is a spectrum of discrepancy at play here,
because in the Alabasta Arc example,
Happiness Punch was able to knock out everyone.
However, this is not the case in our second instance
where the technique was utilized on Wano.
In this case, only one individual was actually knocked out,
which was, predictably Sanji.
Sneakily using his stealth black raid suit
to be present in the bathing area.
Which was kind of redundant
because it was a mixed bathing area anyway,
so he really could have just,
you know, gone in without issue.
But back to the point at hand,
we didn't actually see anyone else knocked out
by Happiness Punch, not in the manga anyway.
We saw people with nosebleeds,
hearts eyes, and et cetera,
but not the sheer power that was showcased on Alabasta.
I should say that in the anime adaptation,
people did fall down unconscious
but it was still an inconsistent effect
because many remained standing and staring,
and not just women either.
And we should also be clear about the situation here as well
because this Happiness Punch was aimed directly
at a member of the Worst Generation, being Basil Hawkins.
So with that in mind, one can assume that Nami
was not holding back in any way.
And thus, using Happiness Punch to it's full potential.
Rather annoyingly though, this scene is kind of weird
because we never see the reaction of Hawkins.
He basically just vanishes for a bit,
while we focus on Sanji and then Hawkins
reappears next to Drake.
It's a really, really weirdly structured scene
and I suppose that's what happens when joke attacks
are used against such prominent characters.
Or to kind of had to make Hawkins disappear
because what else can you do?
One option would be to have him affected
by Happiness Punch and thus diminishing
his status in this, otherwise, incredibly serious arc
or to have Hawkins be unaffected by it,
in which case he just easily captures Nami.
Neither situation is particularly great
for what Oda wanted to do with the story,
so I guess we just make Hawkins disappear, ooh.
But Happiness Punch did still prove
to be incredibly effective,
although it clearly operates on a scale.
And there are some people in this world
who are going to be entirely immune to such an attack.
And weirdly enough, one of those people would be Luffy.
However, this is strange because in both
Alabasta Arc examples of Nami's true Happiness Punch
and Bon Clay's imitation punch,
Luffy was affected just like everyone else.
But then much later on in the story,
we have scene on Amazon Lily
with Luffy seeing Boa Hancock bathing
and he has zero reaction whatsoever.
But this inconsistency would go on to be explained
by Eiichiro Oda in the SBS of volume 54.
"I believe that Luffy reacted to Nami's naked body twice,
in volumes 18 and 23, and both times it happened,
Usopp was with him.
He's the suspicious one.
In other words, when Luffy is alone,
his reaction is what it was with Hancock.
He's interested, but he's not entranced by her.
But when he's with Usopp, who's the same age,
it's like a kid on a school trip.
His bad side comes out.
Yeah, both sides of Luffy feel right to me,
so the culprit is definitely Usopp."
So basically, Luffy is susceptible to peer pressure
and will generally act the way his peers do.
But in, say, a one-on-one situation,
he would be completely immune
to the power of Happiness Punch.
And having mentioned Amazon Lily though,
this does bring up a striking parallel
between Happiness Punch
and Boa Hancock's Mero Mero abilities.
They both have similar pre-requisites for use,
being the lustful nature of the target in question.
Although Happiness Punch tends to be much more violent,
whilst Boa Hancock simply turns people into stone.
There is something to be said
for the element of surprise though,
because even if Happiness Punch
is an arguably weaker version
of the Mero Mero no Mi's powers,
it is a more unexpected attack.
For example, Vice Admiral Momonga
knew to act swiftly enough to avoid
being entranced by Hancock.
Whereas I'm not so sure if he would've taken someone
like Nami as seriously.
And then when she drops her towel,
it would simply be far, far too late.
Mini Momonga will activate
and Happiness Punch would have landed.
And I think the other appropriate comparison to make
would be to Conqueror's Haki.
Both Happiness Punch and Conqueror's Haki
serve a very similar purpose,
which is to knock out huge legions of dude bruhs,
and furthermore, they both only offer an effect
on the more weak-minded individuals of the world.
They just attack different features of personality.
Conqueror's Haki is a direct assault on willpower,
whilst Happiness Punch attacks physical desire.
And not only that, but Oda himself has been posed
the question of which of these techniques is stronger,
which he answered in the SBS of volume 74.
"I see, this is tough showdown, isn't it.
Well, let's see, if we were to talk about these two
using their techniques with their own bodies alone,
Nami's Happiness Punch would only work
among visible range, so it would probably
not be able to compete against Luffy's Haki.
However, if we are allowed to take
the usage of visual Den Den Mushi into consideration,
Luffy's Haki will not be able to convert
into willpower-radio waves,
but Nami will be able to attack various locations
around the world at once,
and thus victory would become Nami's.
Nevertheless, it should be noted
that the Happiness Punch also deals a great amount damage
to one's wallet as it requires the payment
of 100,000 Berries per person,
and in this way, it can be confirmed
that this attack is a great deal nastier
than Haki in general."
So there you have it.
Purely comical confirmation from the author himself
that Happiness Punch is at least more mean spirited
than Conqueror's Haki.
But hey, it is cool to know that with the use
of a visual Den Den Mushi,
Happiness Punch retains its full effect.
The same cannot be said for Conqueror's Haki
because you do need to be in range to feel it.
So right now, I'm imagining a situation
where Nami was present at Marineford
and in order to stop the war,
she decided to invoke a global Happiness Punch,
affecting everyone currently viewing the battle
and quite probably becoming richer
than all of the world nobles combined
through the sheer amount of financial debt
that the world would owe her.
But as for who Happiness Punch
would be most effective on,
well, it's obviously the more perverted types in this world.
Sanji has come up a lot in this discussion
but it's also worth flagging Momonosuke
as a clear candidate given his tendencies.
And I suppose you could also add Brook into the mix
but it is highly debatable
over whether or not he would actually be affected.
Primarily because he has no blood.
So if Happiness Punch is based
on knocks outs via blood loss
then Nami using the technique on Brook
is about as effective as Enel using lighting on Luffy.
And furthermore, Nami would almost certainly make
the Enel face having met her natural counter.
But it would also be quite effective against,
the not perverted, but more shy
about this sort of stuff types.
Meet, for example, Drake on Wano was almost knocked out
by the sight of seeing a random woman in a state of undress.
So I could see Happiness Punch
having a pretty major impact on him.
The hardest people to tell are those like Zoro.
You know the stoic, focused individuals
who act like they have no interest in the greater world,
but they very clearly do sometimes.
And so I suppose what Zoro has going in his favor
is general disinterest.
I mean I think he was the only one on Alabasta
who did not peek into the women's baths,
which means that he has a keen sense of avoiding danger.
But that doesn't mean that he would not be affected
if danger found him.
However, I guess my main take away from all of this,
if indeed there is one at all, probably not.
But its that Happiness Punch
is a very specific move that doesn't have the great area
of effect that, say, the Mero Mero no Mi
or Conqueror's Haki are able to achieve.
Those two abilities do not discriminate.
They strike just about everyone.
Happiness Punch also isn't quite
as strong as either of them,
with conquerer's haki fully knocking people out
and the Mero Mero no Mi completely immobilizing them.
However, Happiness Punch, in the right situation,
is still pretty extraordinary,
especially considering we were introduced to it
long before the other abilities I've mentioned.
This was the original crowd sweeper,
and in the first half of the Grand Line,
as well as likely all four blues,
and yeah, even most of the New World,
this attack is still going to yield incredible results.
Another one of many reasons why Nami
is heavily underrated by the World Government
when it comes to her bounty.
But that only works in her favor
because her comparative lack of notoriety
means that nobody ever expects
to be struck with the happiest attack
in the entirety of One Piece.
What do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below
or even join my Discord server.
And If you'd like to see more videos like this,
then please do check out some my other content
or even subscribe to the channel.
For more glorious One Piece business,
upload it straight to your YouTube feeds.
But for now this has been the Grand Line Review,
and I'll see you next time.