"People's memories tend to become embellished..."The episode starts with a rather intriguing flashback of a certain person's memories against actual reality. He remembers how, as a kid, he used to sit in and watch an orchestra practice and was even offered to try conducting. However in actuality, he was often thrown out of the practice room by the conductor. The flashback ends with a scene inside a turbulent plane cabin and a dropped bottle of pills.In present time, Chiaki, the son of renowned pianist Chiaki Masayuki, is a piano student of a musical academy. He was dissatisfied with the other students as he felt that they were without talent. During a lesson, mulling over a fellow student's big break to study overseas while he was stuck in Japan, he expressed his anger while playing the piano and was hit by his teacher. Picking up the fallen musical notes, the teacher notices Chiaki's notes and ridicules his dream to be a conductor. Chiaki blew off his top and after saying his regrets, the teacher left the room.Walking down the hall, he heard the sounds of a piano being played messily. Although at first he dismissed it another lousy play, he was struck by the realization that the piece was played without any mistakes. Before he could find out who was playing, a girl angrily called out to him, intent on finding out what happened. They went off to a bar and Saiko tried to reason with him. Although he wanted to become a conductor, Chiaki had no intentions of transferring to the conducting section until he has perfected his piano. She tells him to study abroad but he can't take a plane after experiencing an emergency landing when he was a boy, nor can he take a boat after nearly drowning as well. In the end, he was dumped by his girlfriend for complaining too much.A drunken Chiaki was found sleeping in a corridor by a young girl. He awakes the next morning to the same music he heard being played by the mystery student at the academy. Much to his chagrin, he found himself in a room filled with thrash and quickly ran out of the room only to find out that he will not be able to escape her. She was his next door neighbour!At school, Chiaki was found by his weird neighbour who calls out happily that he had left his belt at her place. Wanting to avoid mistaken perceptions of the other students, he denies it and escapes from her again. Not for long. His new teacher, Tanioka Hajime was also the teacher of Nodame! While watching Tanioka and Nodame's lesson, he overheard some students commenting on Tanioka's reputation of teaching "failures". Mulling over his current situation (geez, Chiaki complains a lot >:/), Chiaki smells a waft of weird stench coming from next door and peeks over the balcony to see Nodame's balcony overflowing with thrash. He instantly runs over and ended up cleaning her whole apartment for her. The next day, Tanioka-sensei entrusts them with the task of playing a piano duet. Chiaki at first refuses, but after being persuaded by the teacher, he agrees to take it on as "guiding his junior". Being the impatient ass that he is, he decides to jump straight into it after only giving the both of them 8 minutes of practice. Of course, Nodame screws it up before long. Tanioka-sensei explains that Nodame learns to play by listening to the music instead of reading the musical scores and so Chiaki decides to play for her in order for her to learn. Nodame was able to reduce her mistakes rapidly much to his surprise.And then they were ready to show off their efforts. Nodame was obviously having the jitters though, she was shaking like a leaf! Before they start, Chiaki turned to her and told her to play however way she wanted. He recognized that she had talent and was confident that the only person who could match her pace was him. After going through so much practice together, Chiaki was familiar to Nodame's way of playing and was able to match her effortlessly. He remembers how his idol Vieira-sensei had once told him that it was really rare to pull off a performance so emotionally moving that it makes one's heart go doki-doki and felt that it was at that moment that his heart moved. Tanioka-sensei applauded him for successfully crossing over his hurdle and he realizes that the lesson was actually designed for him. The episode ends with Nodame's unsure love confession... Mukyaaa~ <3Truthfully, I hated Chiaki's character at the start. He's snobbish, he's too gloomy and he complains too much. But it was funny how he found himself taking care of Nodame unconsciously. And I felt the part when he told Nodame to play as she like was just too sweet. He was definitely thinking of her. And Chiaki, lesson well learned. Instead of trying to change people, change yourself. :D But Nodame on the other hand, I absolutely adored her right from the start. She's just too cute! Really, who could hate such a simple-minded person?
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