Nojiko

Nojiko (ノジコ) is the adoptive sister of Nami. The two aren't related, but were raised together by Bell-mère.

Appearance
Nojiko is an average-sized young woman with light blue hair and tanned skin.

Her right arm and chest are heavily tattooed - a gesture of sympathy and condolence towards Nami, who was ashamed of her tattoo of Arlong's jolly roger. In the manga, she also used to wear a bracelet which she gave to Nami. She is usually seen wearing a beige sleeveless shirt (sometimes a green button-up shirt with yellow stripes), blue trousers and purple sandals. Furthermore, she appears to wear pink lip gloss.

After the timeskip, her hair has grown longer, she wears lipstick, and she seems to have become slimmer. Much like her sister, her hourglass features have become more pronounced.

Personality
Nojiko is Nami's levelheaded older sister. She is highly supportive of Nami, her adoptive sister, and generous to Genzo, who she and Nami had seen as a father figure. Unlike her sister, she seemed to keep herself out of trouble, although she apparently had a habit of upsetting boys. As she grew older, she also became partly responsible for the well being of others on the island. During the years of Arlong's rule, she would try to prevent others from raising up against Arlong while Nami worked hard towards honoring her deal with him.

She doesn't like people who would throw away their life recklessly. She also has a belief that if you no longer have the will to live and wish to die, so long as you try hard enough, whether adult or child, it will not matter.

Past


She had a tragic past in which, when she was a little girl, everyone around her was killed in a battle between pirates and the Marines. After the fighting had stopped, young Nojiko found a baby girl who still lived and began to wander around until she came across Bell-mère. Using what little strength she had, Bell-mère pulled herself over to the the two children and to the relief of both Nojiko and Bell-mère, the baby laughed seeming unaware of the bloodshed that happened.

Soon afterwards, Bell-mère set sail for her home town with the two children and arrived back home during a storm. She handed over the two girls to the village doctor even though she was hurt. Much to the villagers' surprise, Bell-mère announced after all three were better that she was adopting the two girls, Nojiko and the baby (who had been dubbed "Nami" by then), something Nojiko was apparently happy about.

Their life together was a struggle as Bell-mère was poor. Being the elder of the two sisters Nojiko had everything bought for her first and Nami would end up with her hand-me-downs. After scolding Nami for denouncing them as a family causing Nami to run off, Nojiko was sent after her.

That same day Arlong invaded the island and found her home, Bell-mère tried to fend the fishman off but was quickly subdued. When asked for the fee needed to stay alive, it turned out all the money Bell-mère had would either save herself or her two daughters. Things would've been okay, as Arlong was unaware of the two girls' existence, but Bell-mère gave it to her two girls as she would rather have died than not call herself a mother. To that end, Arlong shot her right in front of the eyes of her two adopted daughters, but not before Bell-mère apologized to Nami for not being richer, and not being able to buy the girls whatever they wanted. With that, she said her final words to the girls: "I love you."

Arlong Park Arc
In the present storyline, she saves Usopp and a boy called Chabo from the hands of the fishmen.

She reveals Nami's past to the Straw Hats in return for them to leave the island. After trying to stop Nami from attacking captain Nezumi, a Marine officer who tries to take the money Nami raised for her deal with Arlong, Nojiko was shot by him in the back. However, she survived. She also aided in the rescue of Luffy with the help of Genzo after Luffy is thrown into the ocean by Arlong with his feet stuck in a chunk of concrete.

Post-Enies Lobby Arc
She is later seen after Nami gets her first bounty, apparently content with the idea that she is at least smiling in the photo. She gets confused with the ironic fact that Genzo becomes outraged by the picture on Nami's bounty poster, in which she is only wearing a bikini, even though he possesses an enlarged copy of said picture.

Two Years Later
After the Straw Hats reunite, Nojiko is seen by Bell-mère's grave with Genzo, Chabo, and Nako. She and Chabo are both wearing aprons displaying Nami's tattoo and tangerines, suggesting they made it into a business.

Relationships
Nojiko always had a fairly content relationship with Bell-mère and never saw a problem with being adopted. Unlike Nami, she was aware of the situation she was found in by her and she laughed alongside Bell-mère about how Nami had been unaware of the bloodshed that happened around them.

Growing up, she often supported Nami's bad habits of stealing, much to Bell-mère's annoyance. She was deeply angry at Nami's original recruitment into Arlong's crew, but at the same time knew her sister enough to realize that she would not join the crew without reason. Nami's forever hatred of her tattoo led Nojiko to get her own and at the time she told her adoptive sister she got her tattoos because she wanted some body art like Nami's, something Nami never forgot about when it came round to finally remove Arlong's tattoo.

Trivia

 * In a response to a fan about whether Kuina and Tashigi's names come from birds, Oda also mentioned that Nojiko's name too comes from a bird, a Japanese yellow bunting.