Hey there!! Recently I watched back my drama collections and 'TA DA' I found this... Nodame Cantabile.
Nodame Cantabile is a story about Shinichi Chiaki, an arrogant, multilingual perfectionist, is the top student at Momogaoka College of Music and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy (namely Prague), but is trapped in Japan because of his childhood phobia of airplanes and the ocean. In contrast, Megumi Noda, or "Nodame", is a piano student at Momogaoka, notorious for messiness and eccentric behavior. Despite being very talented, Nodame prefers to play by ear rather than according to the musical score; thus, she is regarded as sloppy and playful.
When they meet by accident, Nodame quickly falls in love, but it takes much longer for Chiaki to even begin to appreciate Nodame's unusual qualities. Their relationship causes them both to develop and grow. Along the way, they meet some crazy people (like Masumi, Mine, and Stresemann) and make lasting friendships. Because of Nodame, Chiaki gets the opportunity to lead a student orchestra and begins to have a broader appreciation of people's musical abilities. Because of Chiaki, Nodame faces her fears and enters a piano competition. Opportunities open up as both begin taking risks, stretching themselves far more than they ever thought possible.
After graduation, Nodame succeeds in curing Chiaki from his phobias and they both move to Paris where, Nodame continues her piano studies at the Conservatoire de Paris while Chiaki starts a professional career as a conductor. In Europe, they encounter new friends and rivals, as well as keep in touch with their friends from Japan.
The series fits into the “achievement” genre, a bit like all those sports films where the underdog eventually wins. But the fact that it’s done through comedy makes it much more enjoyable and far less presumptuous. The use of music is also inspired, and if I may say so, very informative. Until I saw this series I really thought a conductor simply moved the stick to the rhythm of the music. I have also learnt to appreciate classical music much more than I ever did before. I may even go to see an orchestra now.
Anyway, all in all a very enjoyable series. Overall the acting was excellent, technically the film is great (apart from some odd sudden changes in the colour correction), and it is a delight for the ears.
1. Noda Megumi / Ueno Juri
Also known as Nodame, She is depicted as a complete slob: her cooking and cleaning skills are atrocious to the point of having mushrooms growing on her clothes and poisoning anyone who dares to eat her food (yet she's never been poisoned). However, she is an incredibly talented pianisT primarily plays by ear, in a cantabile style.
In love with Chiaki, she follows him around constantly, claiming to be his "wife," and leans on him to help her get through sticky situations. She sometimes compulsively needs to play the piano, neglecting everything in order to do it. As well as that, she seems to enjoy childish manga and movies. She is constantly hungry, and is fed dinners by Chiaki; she also steals many lunches from her fellow friend, Maki. Nodame has a tendency to speak cryptically (sometimes she doesn't even understand herself), often refers to herself in the third person, and uses nonsense words like mukya and gyabo.
Nodame is initially very dependent on Chiaki in terms of ambition - she has little intention of becoming a professional pianist, despite her remarkable talent, and wants to become a kindergarten teacher, though many feel she is too reckless and lacks the appropriate sensibility to be responsible with teaching children.
Her piano style is considered to be completely haphazard, diverting from original intent at both dynamics, rhythms and even themes. Realizing that her current attitude towards music will eventually drive her apart from Chiaki, Nodame gradually develops the necessary drive to pursue music for her own sake. Her attitude towards music is largely due to an incident in the past where she was hurt by a teacher who demanded her to play music "as it's written". Despite this, several people have commented on how captivating her piano is, and how she is able to draw rich, expressive notes from the piano.
Eventually, she goes with Chiaki to France for further education in music. Due to her carefree attitude towards music previously, she struggles to keep up with the rest of the class in terms of in-depth knowledge and techniques, but manages to overcome the trials laid before her and begins to "truly" appreciate music. Near the end of the series, she performed with Stresemann on stage (he was attempting to pull her out of an emotional slump), and was an instant world-wide hit.
During their stay in France, Chiaki and Nodame become a couple, with Chiaki once stating that "he got tired of fighting her".
2. Chiaki Shinichi / Tamaki Hiroshi
He is an accomplished pianist and violinist, but is also known to be a perfectionist when it comes to music and is highly critical of himself and others. As he opens up to others (with much prodding from Nodame), he becomes more caring of his friends and readily lends a hand to his friends should they need help. In university, he was extremely popular among the female students due to his good looks and musical ability.
He comes from a distinguished and well-off family, and is an excellent cook (although he mostly cooks Western-style food, possibly because he spent much of his childhood in Europe). He seems to think that most "poor" people (such as Sakura Saku) are like the little match girl. While he dreams of studying abroad and becoming a famous conductor like his mentor, Sebastiano Viera, he must overcome his fear of flying and the sea to do so (he finally did with help of Nodame's hypnosis). His fears come from traumatic incidents in the past, one when he survived an airplane crash landing, the other because he was almost drowned. His family once attempted to drug him and bring him on board a plane, but the plane had to turn back due to difficulties.
He is dismayed to discover that this freakish but talented girl, Nodame, lives in the apartment next door to him,. However, he develops a sort of empathy with Nodame as he discovers her hidden potential to be a great pianist, and he begins to transcend his perfectionism and begins to enjoy his music and the music of others. Despite his constant irritation towards Nodame, he eventually develops romantic feelings toward her and he chooses to find work as a conductor in Paris, where she is going to study. As Chiaki realizes his life's ambition to become a conductor, he also finds that he needs Nodame's support and he cannot move on without her. He also appears to have fear of being abandoned and surpassed, the former comes from being abandoned by his father as a young boy. Afraid of being abandoned, he often abandons other people instead, especially Nodame. In various instances, he's also shown to have reservation over being "too friendly" with others, (mentioned in a rehearsal with RS orchestra). He's constantly afraid of being surpassed by Nodame, trying to go ever ahead, which leaves her miserable as she is trying to catch up to him. He also can be considered as insensitive.
He is one of the major factors in Nodame's progress in music, occasionally taking the time to extensively coach her during critical periods. In turn, he too is influenced and inspired strongly by her music.
During university, he became the student/apprentice of Stresemann, and while Chiaki is constantly irritated by Stresemann's numerous vices (visiting nightclubs frequently, chasing women, drinking, etc), he respects his teacher's music and ability in conducting. This relationship sees a continuation when they move to France, where Chiaki is coerced by Stresemann's manager Elise into signing a contract with their agency.
As the series progresses, he falls in love with Nodame, especially while they are in France. Despite his popularity among women, he is somewhat surprisingly devoted, and once their relationship solidifies is never seen to be unfaithful to her, once explicitly declining Rui's invitation for a date and stating that he was going to meet up with Nodame. However, they do go through the occasional rough patch, partially because they spend large amounts of time apart (as a conductor and Stresemann's student, Chiaki travels all over Europe), and both Chiaki and Nodame are prone to bouts of insecurity.
At the end of series, he is slowly advancing his career as a conductor, with an orchestra that has a long history but had since fallen on tough times. He successfully remakes the orchestra's declining image little by little.
Maestro Franz von Stresemann / Naoto Takenaka
Kuroki Yasunori / Seiji Fukushi
Miki Kiyora / Asami Mizukawa
Masumi Okuyama / Keisuke Koide
Saiko Tagaya / Misa Uehara
Etoh Kouzo / Kosuke Toyohara
Tanioka Hajime / Masahiko Nishimura
Kikuchi Toru / Mukai Osamu
Frank Latoine / Wentz Eiji
Tatiana "Tanya" Vishneva / Becky
Jean Donnadieu / Giry Vincent
Sebastiano Vieira / Zdeněk Mácal
credits to: wikipedia & anime.net
) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided." (An-Nahl 16:125)
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