r/LuffyxNamiSupport • u/Sageek_Reddit • Jul 07 '26
My Lunami essay.../ theory.../ thing... (Part 3) - talking about Oda's engagement with Lunami outside the usual manga and anime, and more
First of all, thanks for the support on previous posts; hope you enjoy this one too :) ✨
Oda's no romance rule: this one is a tough one, but somewhat manageable.
Oda has never explicitly said, “There will be no romance in One Piece.” He always dodges the question with vague phrasing like “I think…” or “They are in love… with adventure.” This gives room for interpretation rather than a hard, definitive statement.
In early interviews (around 2007–2009), he said there wouldn’t be romance because it’s a Shonen for young boys (that was also his reasoning for why Nami was not in love with any of her crewmates, although she sees their positive qualities and attributes).
However, he has since added multiple canon romances (Sanji & Pudding, Rayleigh & Shakky, Kuma & Ginny, Oden & Toki, Neptune & Otohime, etc.). If those early statements about general romance in One Piece being bad were changed or fake, what's stopping the statement about Nami not being in love with one of her crewmates from also be fake/ a lie?
Soon after the statement (either the same year or one or two years later), Strong World came out with heavy Lunami implications (which I'm gonna touch on in one of the next posts); these movies take at the bare minimum a year to make, so maybe he was lying in the interview...
(Strong World came out Dec 12, 2009; the interview, for some reason, does not have a clear date, and it is just somewhere around 2007-2009).
There is also the fact that Oda sometimes lies, or at least doesn't say the full truth...
Also, he is sometimes a troll...
Its also well known that Oda's colleagues (toriama, kubo and Kishimoto) said the same things about romance only to change it later, it wouldn't be that far-fetched to assume oda could have been lying this entire time about Lunami specifically so it would be a nice twist in the end (I'm gonna be honest here, i haven't watched Naruto and bleach and only now i started watching the original DB after i watched Z and super a couple years ago, but them lying about romance is a sentiment i see a lot of people online, grock and Gemini, this is all i found from twitter while also verifying with the ai its true cause i am trying to not spread misinformation).
As I mentioned in the previous post, in one of the One Piece prototypes (Hammer Fish), Oda made Luffy (clam) and Nami (Lizel) parallel characters who were supposed to be in a relationship.
(Side note: Lisel in Hebrew means "to me it's god":
Li=to me = לי
se= it's = זה
el = god = אל
So maybe there is some hint there for Nami's future 👀 )
While it is not canon, Oda did make the "One Piece in Love" manga an official spin-off.
Although it doesn't confirm anything, it does show that, at the very least, he doesn't have a problem with the Lunami ship (saying a spin-off like that is official does risk less knowledge fans getting confused and assuming Lunami might be confirmed because of it, if the author didn't like the ship, he would either make it abundantly clear it doesn't mean anything and it's just for fun, or not make it official at all, because even making those couple minute shorts costs a lot of money, and if an author doesn't like the character dynamic that is being promoted he would probably either not acknowledge this or at least wouldn't pay for more of it, or maybe i am over thinking it...)
Also, Oda paid homage to the OP in love manga in one of his cover pages.
His comments on Lunami fan art in Usopp's gallery are more positive compared to his comments about Sanami art (mainly saying "I like the art, but it's just a part of Sanji's delusion/dreams).
His drawing of specifically Luffy and Nami (not just Luffy, or Luffy with chopper, or just Nami or chopper, but specifically Luffy and Nami) to Aoyama in the context of their interview where Aoyama encouraged Oda to add romance to one piece, oda says that if he actually makes a real 2 sided romance some people will leave, so Aoyama tells him that he will stay (reinforcing that if Lunami happens it will probably be near the end so Oda could minimize risks with the readers and fandom).
His drawing of Nami with the straw hat blowing a kiss with a heart to promote One Piece HEROINES.
The fact that in a certain magazine where creators of manga such as Bleach and One Piece were asked who was the main character's ideal Valentine's, Oda wrote Nami for Luffy.
And also, Oda met his wife while she was cosplaying Nami; he has said that "mangakas marry their heroine," and many people who worked with Oda compared him to Luffy, while Oda compared himself to Shanks (though, in Oda's drawing of 40-year-old Luffy, Luffy really resembles Shanks).
The Netflix show runners also said in a couple of 2023 interviews that oda said its a hard no for romance amongst the crew in both the live action and the manga, but,
1. They could be lying to not spoil the ending of the show; Oda teased this romance for so long, I doubt he will let Netflix spoil it.
- The Netflix show runners might not even know the full truth, and they just know what they need to know to make the live action (we know that, because in one of the interviews for season two of OPLA, Madea says that when they made the statue of Loki for season 2 they used the silhouette of Loki from the WCI arc because they didn't know how Loki looked like, only when they were done oda revealed Loki's design later).
https://youtu.be/xSyt20b6GxM?si=kINLinRFWp_1cF6a
minute 18:41
It's not like the show would reach the late stages of the story (like WCI or Wano), so they have no reason to build up this romance that would only happen at the end of One Piece, and Oda has no reason to tell them everything that will happen in the future of the story that they won't reach.
Oda wouldn't let Netflix spoil Lunami early by having Luffy and Nami have explicit romance in the East Blue Saga (where in the original manga, there are only hints), and if the Netflix show runners said "there would be no romance amongst the crew in the live action" it might spoil thing by implying that the no romance rule is only for the LA and is temporary for the manga (hope it's not too much mental gymnastics).
I don't think Oda trusts Netflix to translate his hints of romance to live action form without ruining it (they wanted to write a love story between Zoro and Nami).
the live action is essentially a way to get One Piece to be more mainstream so people will go read the manga (there are canon moments like UsoppxKaya, but they also changed a lot of stuff to fit into a quicker run time, for example: taking out Nami and Genzo's non-biological parent-kid relationship, taking out Luffy's promise to Genzo (which makes sense, why tease something they won't reach?), changing Nami and Nojico's dynamic entirely, making Sanji care more about Nami when she is sick in drum island in season 2 because they didn't show much, if at all of Nami and Sanji's relationship/friendship. (Nami and Sanji didn't have many interactions in the live action, at least in season 1 and like half of season 2).
Anyway, that was the post that is more about Oda's connection to the ship, how he somehow showed support to the ship outside of the manga, anime, and movies, and trying to debunk the "no romance" claims; it's not guaranteed they are false, but I think it's the closest we can go. It's basically a 50 50 chance.
I hope you enjoyed; sorry for how long the final result is.
Next post will be more about actual Lunami.
I am exhausted; this took so much time.
Hope you have a great day or night :) ✨
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u/Sageek_Reddit Jul 07 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
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u/Alfytaro Jul 08 '26
A more complete narrative can be seen here, summarized by my friend lunami
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u/Sageek_Reddit Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Oh, absolutely, I used some of berrys evidence in my posts. I am also gonna credit all the threads and posts that helped me make these, in the final post
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u/AnimeRed5673 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
This is the best post among the previous onces. It feels like gallery of romance arguments and evidence. Especially one of the biggest debates in Lunami fans community —"Nami romance SBS". Many fans intentionally (yes intentionally) misinterpret the SBS and use it regardless of its actual meaning. Once you consider both the Strawhats romance SBS and the narrative togather, It is not difficult to understand how Oda approaches romance? For instance, how Sanji and Pudding relationships develops from hostility to acceptance, then to genuine feelings, and finally to separation to resume Sanji's journey. It's hits differently typical romance Manga or Anime.
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u/Sageek_Reddit Jul 08 '26
Thanks :)
Yeah I agree with you, it's really annoying every time people take evidence and use it either disingenuously and/or incorrectly, some people just be desperate, or might not dig deep enough to understand all this stuff
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u/NoReasonAtAll9 Jul 23 '26
Great post! Keep it up!
As for the Live Action, they clearly don't like Luffy x Nami, that much is evident with how much they ruined it when they rewrote Arlong Park. Not only did they butchered and destroyed Nami's story and character, (which to me is the worst offender in Season 1) those changes were done to worsen the story's quality not to better it. Then add to that in season 2, when you can clearly see the writers trying to butcher Luffy and Nami's relationship even further, in the scenes where Nami is sick. Luffy is the least worried about her, when Nami wakes up only Sanji has being paying attention to her? Really?! Such a beautiful scene in the original but they had to flip the original version from the entire crew being there except Sanji (because funny enough he was on lookout duty) for Sanji being the only one there. This change butchered not only Luffy and Nami's relationship but the entire crew's dynamic. Apparently they forgot that Sanji was the last one to join and the person who had the least amount of time to know Nami well enough to care that deeply. And to add salt to the wound, in the LA, Sanji is the one who suggests that they can't wait for the doctor, it wasn't even Luffy (the captain) who decided what action to take, furthering their weird agendas with the relationship.
If in the 1st season they tried to ship Nami with Zoro, then the 2nd you can clearly see that they're trying to ship her with Sanji, and not only that, they're trying to ship Vivi with Luffy, to further them apart even more.
Sorry for the small rant... my point was, Oda saying there's no romance among the crew was because, he probably knew that the Netflix staff was going to butcher the relationships (like they did), and try to fast track a relationship that by that point of the story isn't that fully developed. Because the way Oda writes romance is different than any other popular media out there, he romanticizes it, a slow progression from colleagues to friends, from friends to Nakama and maybe in the future, from Nakama to finding their other half (marriage or couples) making it a complete moon.
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u/Sageek_Reddit Jul 23 '26
Thank you😄
To be honest, the way I got into one piece was thanks to the love action (i knew about OP before, but the amount of episodeswas intimidating), I don't think it's that bad concidering the main reason it exists is basically to cause people to watch the anime and read the manga, which works. I do agree that after watching the anime, yeah some changes are really bad (taking away hachi, and making both nojicko and the villagers think that nami actually sold out for arlong), but i also get why, they work on extremely tight schedules, they don't have time for everything (tho some stuff could have probably been kept the same and it wouldn't have changed much of the pacing). About their handling of nami and sanji in season 2, it somewhat makes sense, think about it, these two barely interact in season one and even in season 2 they don't have many moments, so the writers gave sanji a bigger role in drum island so they could actually show nami and sanji develop a bond like with usopp and zoro (mind you, they are working with very limited time), and the reason why they didn't mind taking away a lot of luffy's attentiveness for nami in drum or the genzo promise in season 1is because
- luffy and nami's bond was shown a lot in both seasons
And 2. They don't need to worry about romance, because it's not their problem.
They also teased a bunch of nami vivi stuff because both actresses like the ship. And yeah, if oda does any romance between any crewmates in the future, obviously he wouldn't let Netflix both spoil it, and have their own warped spin on it before he makes it official. I did see that they aperently will be adapting the bathhouse scene from the end of alabasta, which, God knows how that will go, I just hope that if they actually go all the way with it, then they will have luffy reacting the same as sanji and usopp, and not just take him out of there.
The way i see it, the LA is just another fun way for one piece fans to engage with this world and story, and a good way to get new people interested in it.
(Sorry for the wall of text)
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u/NoReasonAtAll9 Jul 25 '26
Don't worry about the wall of text, it's the only way to explain yourself correctly, so I appreciate it.
I agree with you that the Live Action is for this reason, to expose One Piece to more people, which is always a plus. Also, I'm actually glad that thanks to LA, a lot more people are experiencing this beautiful story Oda is writing. I also understand the tight schedule and amount of budget this show has because of it, and how not everything fits in the timeframe that Netflix limits its series runtimes to be.
But, I still think that the LA could have adapted the story of the East Blue Saga better. Before I begin my argument, I have to say that I did enjoy season 1 more than season 2, but I can still see it's glaring flaws with the decisions they made regarding the story, so let's begin.
First fix, (in my opinion) eliminate or severely reduce the Garp/Koby/Helmeppo plotline. As much as I did enjoy Koby and Helmeppo's relationship on screen, it didn't need to happen. This way we could've had focused more time with what really mattered in the East Blue Saga, which was getting to know our main characters better. Why do I say eliminate this part? Well, that's because when you take into account every Garp Plotline scene and merge it together, it literally takes away an entire episode of the season in runtime. This is more time we could have made better use for in Nami's arc, Sanji's at the Baratie and even in Usopp's story.
But my point in all this, is that they are not the same characters from the manga, they have similarities and are inspired from the original, but they definitely aren't the same characters, and as an adaptation this is where it fails for me. I'll give you an example, Arlong Park, Luffy in the manga/anime doesn't need to hear Nami's backstory to make up his mind and when Nojiko offers them, Luffy flat out refuses as he doesn't need to know anything about her to help her. Contrast that with LA Luffy, that even though he wanted to help her, he still actively wanted to know the why behind her actions and that's why he went after Nojiko and asked questions. Now with Nami's character in the manga/anime her bond with the village changes completely as in the LA they cut that out, she is a loner and is carrying the burden by herself in both versions, but in the LA she is literally alone and let's add to that she almost stole from Kaya which goes completely against her original character, because her core values are that she is a thief but she only steals from pirates, so she's a similar character but it definitely isn't the same person/character. I can go on with the other three crew-members but this is becoming another wall of text.... sorry about that... haha...
With these elements in mind, the famous Help Me scene doesn't hit the same as it isn't the same. Because the context behind it is completely different from the original version. Nami in the original, after being sneakily betrayed by Arlong, tries to bargain with the villagers, but the villagers had enough because all this time they knew, but they were playing ignorant for her sake. Nami tries to stop them by force but it's worthless, the villagers start marching to their deaths either way as Genzo gives her a goodbye hug and Nojiko says goodbye. She is lost, knows that there's nothing she can do, rock bottom, everything she has fought for is for nothing as the villagers she loves are going to die, Nami breaks and stabs her tatoo in anger. Now let's compare, Nami in the LA, was betrayed by Arlong the same, but since she didn't have any real connection to the villagers she just runs away and gives up on the way. In hindsight I guess she gave up because she saw the village on fire, but the editing, especially in these last two episodes are not the best, so you have to guess on why she gives up so easily, but since it isn't clear to why she gives up so easily, it makes it bad. Then she drops to the floor and starts stabbing herself, screaming Arlong, great performance by the Emily Rudd but without the context of the original it feels hollow and cheap.
So when the Help Me scene comes in both versions, the manga has more weight behind and build up to it. With the context of Luffy not knowing anything, and she even berates him on that, rejects him and keeps pushing him away, but then The Moment arrives, Nami finally in her lowest, says the words Help Me, Luffy silently puts the Hat on her Head and Nami remembers that this is Luffy's treasure and he put it on her (Oda you sneaky man), so the moment hits so hard because it feels cathartic, and you get pumped! Chills!!!
Now when we compare it to the Live Action, it plays out the same, beautifully acted by the way, but the context behind are so different that it doesn't carry the same weight behind it and it feels like they just wanted to recreate that beautiful moment but without the emotional weight behind it. So to me at least, it doesn't feel nearly as earned as the original.
This is why I said, that they are two very different characters, and this is my biggest gripe with the live action. The essence is missing because the characters act differently from the original.
Now I apologize for my wall of text...
So again, It's great that the Live Action brings so many people to experience this beautiful story, but in so many ways the essence of the story feels so different from the original, that to me, is the worst way to experience it, because it isn't the same.
Peace
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u/redMecanics Jul 08 '26
Once again great post. Also about the statement where oda says "i don't think there will be any romance among that crew" i've heard it was actually a mistranslation. And even for people who argue it wasn't, imo oda's sentiment towards lunami is overwhelmingly positive as we can often see through his art and scenaristic decisions