During rehearsal, Chiaki is feeling frustrated by the orchestra’s playing and borrows a violin to demonstrate how it’s done. Though everyone is shocked to hear Chiaki’s violin skills for the first time, after practice, they think that Chiaki is too much of a spartan. Although Kiyora feels different and welcomes this part of Chiaki, where [...]
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I am surprised that the anime actually decides to include not just the two main performances of the R☆S Orchestra but also the opening performance. As a result of this, however, we don't get to see the main orchestral performance until next week's episode. With only 6 more episodes to go, I think this series will end around the same place as the live action version. The only difference is that we'll probably see Nodame and Chiaki bidding goodbye to their friends and hopefully we'll get to see them in Paris a little bit. I think the anime should continue right through the Paris arc because that's the part that has not been covered by the live action. Having said that, I understand that the author probably don't want the anime to go that far since the manga itself is not anywhere near completion.
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Summary: Frustrated by the fact that the orchestra isn't playing well, Chiaki grabs a violin and shows them how it should be done.
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Everyone takes a trip to a music festival where it becomes clear that Masumi is almost totally superfluous, Mine needs to practice more, and Chiaki and Nodame are still geniuses. This episode was one of the first for a while that really captured the musical moments of the storyline properly; whilst I’m sure it was mostly [...]
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Woot! Lately my personal life seems to be a lot more tense than my blogging. I apologise for that but things have been a bit rough in the past few weeks. Between the work, the computer virus, the hard to format HD, I barely have any desire to do anything else apart from sleeping. Anyway, this is a much better episode than last week's mostly because there are some amusing humour inserted in between the serious practice scene. In addition to this, the various members of R☆S Orchestra actually have interesting personality and their interaction with the existing characters are pretty good. From all of the new characters, I like Kuroki the most because he seems to be the easiest to relate.
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Chiaki has decided to play Brahms Symphony No.1 as his orchestra’s first performance, a piece that Stresemann wouldn’t let him perform with S-Orchestra. He meets up with Kimura who is taking care of the details and has gotten the help of the school director in reserving a hall. Keiko and Sakuma also drop by to [...]
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Chiaki is going to see his uncle but he was told to bring the girl who was with him when he answered the phone. Well, actually Nodame was the one who picked up the phone when his uncle’s called and later passed it to Chiaki but the damage is done. His uncle [...]
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Most of the members in Orchestra S are graduating from the Academy but they’re still hoping to participate in an orchestra just like the one they had in Orchestra S. Although they’ll graduate soon but Mine is trying to persuade Chiaki to make an orchestra outside of school. Chiaki rejects it without [...]
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Nodame is dying to play the piece Rachmaninoff which was played by Chiaki during the festival but when she has the chance to play along with Chiaki… she plays it with her own style, which is much different from what it supposes to sound. But with her talent, she manages to turn [...]
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Stresemann and Chiaki perform the piano concerto Rachmaninoff magnificently and kill the entire crowd, including the journalists. Well, Chiaki became a huge super star after the performance and his play is even covered in magazine… More screenshots:
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With’s Chiaki’s orchestra members assembled, he conducts Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C Major K.314. Though he notices Mine snuck in and told him he’s not needed as there are enough members. Once playing, he notices how everyone is good, especially Kuroki, the oboe soloist. Back home, he finds Nodame as hungry as always and is [...]
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I am sorry to take a little bit of space to talk about it but I think it's necessary to inform everyone about this. A couple of hours ago, my laptop was hit by a strange-looking message, saying that I need to re-activate my Windows using my credit card. If I say 'no', Windows would quit on me and I can't do anything. The thing is, there's something about the message that seems suspicious. It actually asks for your PIN number. Deciding that only a fool will give out his/her credit card to unknown pop ups, I decided to use my desktop computer to find out more about it. As it turns out, the message is a new trojan called Trojan Kardphisher. This is a new Trojan which got unleashed around the 7th of this month so it's relatively new. I managed to over-ride the stupid trojan by giving it fake name and credit card number then flushing out the entire data that it created. Anyway, consider yourself warned and be careful if it happens to you. Well, back to the show.
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So one good thing (or bad thing, depending on your opinion) about the Nodame Cantabile anime is that they skip a lot of stuff from the manga. So you can watch the anime, then read the manga and still get new content! New filler content!
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With everyone woken up by the sound of music, they find out that it was Chiaki and Nodame playing. Toshihiko knows what piece they are playing and remembers how his grandfather loved it. Chiaki’s violin playing impresses the two and think that he should continue with music, but then Takehiko tells his son that he [...]
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I think it was a good decision to separate the later half of Chiaki's family visit from the earlier half. This way I am not as angry as I was when I first read the manga. I mentioned last week that I feel this family undermines Nodame. I realise that they seem to warm up to her but in general, I feel they still look down on her to a degree. Regardless of what they think of her, I think it's a bit cruel to humiliate her by saying that she's not going to reach her dream. On top of this, she's actually a stranger and not one of the family. I don't think anyone would say something that harsh to someone they barely know. I realise it's supposed to be funny but I don't find it to be that way because I know how off-putting to have someone telling you that you can't do something that you want to do.
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I rarely write a dedicated mid-way impressions post- between commenting in the Weekly Round-Up and writing final thoughts at the end, such a thing would seem surplus to requirements. Nonetheless, when it came to Nodame Cantabile, I had a sudden and overwhelming urge to create a post about it- not because I find it overwhelming [...]
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Nodame Cantabile Volume 2 introduces two new cliche characters: the gay timpani player and the perverted master conductor. Did I write "cliche?" I meant weird.
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