Chapter 81

On his docked ship, the crooked Marine Nezumi crows over the savings he stripped from Nami. Within Arlong Park, Arlong plays innocent and tells her to scrape together one hundred million Berries from nothing all over again, repeating his pledge to wipe out Cocoyasi Village if she runs. At home, Genzo rouses the villagers to arms, declaring they can stomach no more of the fish-men toying with Nami's kindness, eight-year vow or not.

Nami sprints back to halt them, insisting she will gladly begin saving once more, but the villagers hold firm. When Genzo orders her aside and Nojiko tells her to chase her dream, a broken Nami drives a dagger into her own tattooed shoulder until Luffy seizes her arm. She turns to him at last and pleads for help. Luffy responds by setting his straw hat upon her head, bellowing that he will, then leads his crew toward the park.

Arlong tears up his deal with Nami and threatens to raze the village should she leave. Driven past her breaking point, Nami asks Luffy for aid, and he accepts by trusting her with his straw hat. At the gates, a bloodied Johnny and Yosaku, shamed for having doubted Nami once they overheard her past, bar the villagers, stressing that only the Straw Hats can stand against the fish-men. Luffy tears the gate clean from its hinges and demands to know which of them is Arlong.

The Animal Theater cover shows Bell-mere cooking a meal of mikan and spaghetti for her daughters Nami and Nojiko, joined by a greedy neighborhood dog. The trivia notes a double milestone: it is the earliest Animal Theater cover whose cast falls outside the Straw Hat crew, and the first cover page anywhere to depict a character already dead. Genzo slices his own hand gripping Nami's dagger to prove the villagers' resolve, and Arlong cruelly teases that he would release Nami only after she maps the entire world, a labor stretching across decades.