Premise: this isn’t an attack on Usopp (I love him) or any other character, but an attempt to reframe a very common misunderstanding. You can appreciate everyone’s contributions without taking credit away from the people who clearly earned it.
One of the most recurring takes is about the Clima Tact and how it’s almost entirely attributed to Usopp, downplaying Nami’s role. But that reading completely ignores how that weapon actually becomes effective. Usopp creates the first Clima Tact based on HIS fighting style: distraction, deception, visual tricks. They’re literally “party tricks,” with a single actually offensive move (the Tornado) added almost as an exception. It’s not designed for direct combat, but to confuse.
It’s Nami, during the fight, with no preparation and under pressure, who realizes that those “tricks” can be combined to create real atmospheric phenomena. Thanks to her knowledge, she turns them into actual attacks. She doesn’t just use the Clima Tact, she REINVENTS IT in real time. And this is the key point people often ignore: Usopp builds a tool, but Nami is the one who discovers its true potential and turns it into a weapon.
After Weatheria, this dynamic becomes even clearer. Nami doesn’t just come back stronger, she comes back with new knowledge, materials, and scientific principles. She’s the one who defines what the Clima Tact should do. At that point, Usopp is still essential, but in a different role: the one who technically implements Nami’s ideas. First with Dials, then with Pop Greens, and later with Franky’s help, the weapon gets upgraded, but the direction is still Nami’s. It’s not that Usopp “gives Nami a strong weapon”: it’s Nami who develops the concept, expands its capabilities, and then relies on her crewmates (love that) to bring it to its highest level.
And then there’s Zeus. Here too, people often say Nami only became strong “because of Zeus,” as if it were a free power-up. But that’s a shallow reading. Zeus is powerful, yes, but also capricious, unstable, and inefficient on his own. Nami is the one who makes him usable. She manipulates him, guides him, integrates him into the Clima Tact. She feeds him and turns him into an extension of her fighting style.
The underlying issue behind this misunderstanding is always the same: people tend to value the object (the weapon, the power-up, the origin of the power) more than the person using it. But in Nami’s case, it’s the exact opposite, her tools become strong because of her.
The Clima Tact without Nami is just a collection of tricks.
Zeus without Nami is just uncontrolled power.
Nami is the common thread that turns all of this into something effective, strategic, and dangerous. And acknowledging that doesn’t take anything away from Usopp or Franky, it simply gives Nami the credit she deserves.
Live action thoughts: precisely because this misunderstanding is so widespread, the live action adaptation has a really interesting opportunity. The more “grounded” language of television could make this process much clearer. Showing Nami observing, connecting the dots, experimenting in real time, maybe visually emphasizing how the weather phenomena form and how she reasons through them, would make it clear that she’s not just “using a weapon,” she’s actively understanding and improving it on the spot. And even better: make her an active part of the creation process from the start. Show that the Clima Tact doesn’t come only from Usopp, but also from Nami’s input, requests, and insights, scenes where she discusses ideas with him, tests things, suggests modifications. That would make explicit a dynamic that in the manga is more implicit.
This way, the division of roles would be crystal clear: Usopp builds, yes, but Nami designs the application, drives its evolution, and defines what it’s actually used for.
If done well, the live action could correct years of surface-level readings and finally make explicit what’s already there in the original text: Nami’s strength doesn’t come from what she’s given, but from what she makes of it.
