Review: Nodame Cantabile (TV)

Running time: 25 minutes
Number of episodes: 23
Vintage: 2007-01-11 to 2007-06-28
Age rating: ???
Genres: Comedy, Romance, Shoujo, Slice of Life
Animation Production: J.C. Staff
Music: Nodame Orchestra
Music Collaboration: EPIC Record Japan
Music Production: Fuji Pacific Music Publishing, Sony Music Entertainment

Source: Anime News Network

Close your eyes for a moment. Picture yourself in an auditorim. Listen to the void of the hall as it prepares to engulf you with the waves of aural enchantment. As it begins, you are instantly drawn in. The first note is enough, as you resonate strongly with the bold introduction. The intensity binds you with a chord and hits you repeatedly. Then it continues on to a strong -yet- delicate heart-piercing arpeggio. The force is enveloped by the emerging sound of the orchestra. How strangely, through the hollows, glows this piano introduction like a dull red morning light! Into the deepest gorge it flows, scenting abysses in their night. There vapor rises: here the orchestra sweeps, now like a fragile thread it creeps, now like a colored fountain it plays. Here the vast length of a piano passage winds its way, in a hundred veins, down the vales, and all at once, it swept you away to a golden world!

Nodame Cantabile is just like the first paragraph of this review, hard to picture but a beautiful experience. There’s many layers of intriguing things to find in this unconventional yet amazing shoujo. Nodame Cantabile is strictly a show about classical music and how a very special group of people end up living and experiencing it in ways that many of us may never have the opportunity to do so. If you’re put off by classical music, don’t worry. I was put off at the beginning and now I’m a fan of Rachmaninov!

Nodame Cantabile is a true shoujo at heart, and the main female character is named Noda Megumi. Noda Megumi likes to be called Nodame for short for some reason, hence the name of the show. She’s a piano major at a conservatory in Tokyo called Momogaoka College of Music. Together in the lime light with Nodame is Chiaki Shinichi. He’s the perfectionist number one piano major at the same conservatory where Nodame studies. He is not only gifted with musical talent, he is also gifted (or cursed, however you look at it) with looks that make all the ladies fall for him.

Although the show is called Nodame Cantabile, much of the focus is on Chiaki and his turmoils towards success. This makes sense in a shoujo, since his appearance, skills, and personality is the eye candy. Nodame does get developed a bit later on, but it was a little surprising how quickly Nodame’s spotlight disappeared in the beginning. She’s always a part of the show in some form or another, so my comments about her participation might be a bit moot.

As for the premise, it’s fairly simple. Chiaki, being a son of a famous pianist, was able to travel to Europe as a child and experience some of the world’s greatest musical performers on stage. He was smitten since then and he vowed to return to Europe one day to become Vierra-sensei’s student and become a conductor like him. He played the piano and violin early on as a child, and wished to hone his skills and become a conductor proficient in piano, that can also play the violin! The problem is that Chiaki soon developed a fear of flying -and- a fear of sailing ever since two seemingly cursed events formed his paranoias. He’s now a grown man, yet he’s emotionally trapped in Japan and cannot reach the outside world to fulfill his childhood dream.

As his world continues to fall apart to the point where he even considers quitting music and just getting a typical salaryman job, he meets up with the strangest girl on the planet — Noda Megumi. Noda Megumi, Nodame for short, is just weird. I won’t list her peculiarities, since it’s part of her charm, but for now just picture the the weirdest girl you know. Now take that image and multiply it by 100, that’s Nodame.

As strange as she is, Nodame was able to get Chiaki back into caring about music and working towards his goals without depending on studying overseas. A bit of luck and help from the outside brings Nodame, Chiaki, and a ton of hard-working students at the Momogaoka College of Music in contact with a very special foreigner. As you can expect, it boils down to Chiaki not being able to go see the world, so with the help of Nodame and a little luck, he brought the world to him. There’s plenty more to discover in Nodame Cantabile, especially since the story takes on a new direction after one of the best high points in the story. Chiaki’s goals take on a new direction, and Nodame takes the talent that Chiaki saw in her and puts them to the test. All of this unfolds in interesting ways all the way till the end.

Nodame Cantabile is exceptionally funny along the way, yet it takes pauses to exemplify the rich serious tone when it needs to. There are a few high points in this show that are just beautiful, and although it’s always a known classical piece, for me it was always a scene of musical discovery and appreciation for yet another work of art so pure that I never took the time to appreciate. You will be tempted to watch the high points of the show at least more than once, given how much of an impact they create. Very few shows can make me want to watch them over and over, but this one did.

The end of Nodame Cantabile is an open ending that won’t exactly compare to the shows other high points, but it does deliver a solid reaffirmation of closure and new beginnings for all of the characters. The unsolved mysteries are pointed out in manga-style shorts that are both informational, witty, and out-right funny. This show won’t make you do anything drastic like get your friends to play instruments so you can conduct an orchestra, or make you change your major to piano, but it will open your eyes to some really beautiful music if you make the effort to appreciate it.

Hidden within the magic of music is a very comical romance story that will definitely hold your interest. It’s amazing how well things are so obvious to some characters, while others remain completely oblivious — or at least want to be. The way things unfold bit by bit until the end will at least give you a few laughs in between the music and the rest of the insanely good gags.

If you need any more convincing, piano, violin, oboe, cello, -heck- an entire orchestra is to Nodame Cantabile as guitar is to BECK. Maybe rock music as a whole to NANA. You can even throw in Hirano Aya’s performance in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu if you want to stretch it a bit. If you were swayed by fictional character performances in these anime shows, Nodame Cantabile is yet another experience you shouldn’t miss. The bond between the viewer, the characters as performers, and the music has only been achieved at this level in very few instances like these.

Review: Sensei no Ojikan – Doki Doki School Hours (TV)

Running time: 24 minutes
Number of episodes: 13
Vintage: 2004-04-04 to 2004-06-27
Age rating: Older Children (May contain mild bad language, bloodless violence)
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life
Animation Production: J.C. Staff, Studio Guts, Studio Matrix

Source: Anime News Network

There’s no denying that once you start watching Sensei no Ojikan you’ll immediately be reminded of Azumanga Daioh if you’ve seen Azumanga Daioh before. At first I thought everything was just a blatant cash-in by J.C. Staff to reap more profit from Azumanga’s success. However, further investigation showed that Sensei no Ojikan’s 4 panel manga was serialized 2 years before Azumanga’s, so in reality the source material for this show is older than Azumanga’s.

Sensei no Ojikan is a comedy school anime much like the well-known Azumanga Daioh. These two anime share a lot in common beyond coming from the same studio. Some of the gags in Sensei no Ojikan felt like they were pulled straight out of Azumanga (although the truth might be the other way around). The pool jokes, the gaijin jokes, and a few other major parts of Azumanga are found in some remixed form here. I can’t be too negative about Sensei no Ojikan though, because it’s not completely Azumanga-lite. One of the more refreshing aspects that Sensei no Ojikan has over Azumanga is the more prominent role of males. I enjoyed the girl bunch in Azumanga a ton, but the inclusion of an equal amount of guys with differing personalities allows Sensei no Ojikan to create situations that were not possible in Azumanga.

Every character in Sensei no Ojikan fills a particular personality. On the girls’ side we have the main character, Mika-sensei (Suzuki Mika) who is a 27 year old woman that looks like an elementary school student. She still lives with her parents and her father spoils her like the child she looks like. There’s no doubt you’ll be reminded of Chiyo from Azumanga who’s equally as cute and short. There’s also Tominaga Miko, a stuck-up rich girl who is part of the cooking club. She likes to say things as they are without any consideration for anyone’s feelings. There’s also Kobayashi Akane who is very lazy but likes to buy expensive stuff and also worries too much about her appearance. She’s has a bit of similarities with Tomo from Azumanga, including her appearance. Then comes Nagare Shizuka, also called iincho. As class president she has a bit more brains than the rest, but has an obsession with a certain pop idol. This obsession and her “megane” look makes her resemble Yomi from Azumanga. Finally, there’s Kitagawa Rio who adores Mika-sensei too much. She doesn’t like boys at all and instead gets off cute tiny girls like Mika-sensei. I’d go as far as say she’s a twisted version of Sakaki from Azumanga. They are both tall and good looking in the eyes of their peers, but unlike Sakaki who is incredibly shy about liking cute things, Rio is the complete opposite and embraces cute things openly. There’s a few more girls but those are the main ones.

The guys are a more original set of characters. There’s Suetake Kenta who is admittedly dumb and loves sports, Kudo Yuichi who’s openly gay and is in love with Suetake, Sei Jyoji a super feminine guy who loves himself more than anyone and also seeking a girlfriend, Wantabe Takumi, president of the manga club and a hardcore otaku, and Nakamura Gen, a student that looks like a 40 year old man whom everyone calls “Oyaji” meaning “Old man.” The homo erotic jokes between the guys are frequent because of this set up, and surprisingly are some of the more daring and funny bits of the show. Nosebleeds and everything are included. However, even with a diverse mix of both male and female characters, Sensei no Ojikan just can’t match Azumanga’s level of attraction. Even with less characters, Azumanga carries on for 26 episodes full of funny situations. Azumanga is also a much more personal experience. It has less characters, so you learn more about each one and tend to care about them more. It’s a great relationship to have with anime. Sensei no Ojikan, on the other hand, uses the same mold over and over and drags the same gags to death. There’s only so many times you can see Mika-sensei jump for sweets because she’s too short or Rio setting Mika up to cry, and the list goes on. There’s plenty of remixed content that really hurts the experience.

There’s no doubt Sensei no Ojikan suffers from high expectations when Azumanga is upheld as a staple in comedy anime. The show never quite equals Azumanga at any single point in time. However, there is some original and funny stuff to be found that it might be worth your time if you want Azumanga-style comedy. It’s less refined and its pacing is all over the place, but it ultimately delivers an acceptable level of comedy fun that can be watched at least once and enjoyed. Anyone who’s never seen Azumanga Daioh might actually have a better time than those of us who have.