Thankyou Kon, you are magnificent for taking the words out of my mouth.
The thing is here you can either sympathise with Nami or you can just see it as all being her fault. I for one sympathise with her as it is evident that the series did nothing to help her with her troubles as much as spoon feeding Akiha into submission and putting up with her endless acts of selfishness.
Who was the one who moaned about having responsibility thrown on her and who was selfishly emo when the potato died? Not to mention who was the one who spent the entire series wandering around aimlessly and not really taking anything to heart seriously enough. As some may say that Akiha did a lot, I see her as a waste of space who really never really did anything in the end besides shooting Leopard's toy gun and axe kicking his senses back. The rest? Well lets just say that Akiha is nothing without her friends but she herself is nothing special.
Back on topic, even as I see Akiha as being air and Nami being the golden tragic hero, there will always be people with the opposite opinion. No one is wrong or right (it's just that I am more right than you are...haha...harmless joke
).
Saying that Nami brought it onto herself is unfair. She has a trauma, a scar from the past and from what I see, inferiority complex. She isn't going to easily sprout out calls for help because of this and who knows, maybe she did in the past and got the shaft from her siblings JUST like what happened here. Again I say that she was neglected.
On the defense that Akiha has been trying to communicate with her then I would question the sincerity behind that. I seriously doubt Akiha (in her half hearted attitude towards life in general) really understand Nami's problems and her showing concern is more like a passing whim now and then rather than truly understanding what makes Nami tick.
If she really did intend to get to know Nami then she would have tried harder to befriend her so to speak. Yet well...this wasn't shown at all was it? All the care I ever hear from Akiha was from the battle field and from shock to see Nami on the opposing side. Well sweet thoughts/words during such situations won't get you anywhere. How about trying to address it before it got to the point of war on the battle field?