Review for Nodame Cantabile – A Romantic Love Story
Nodame Cantabile is originally a series of Japanese manga drawn by Tomoko Ninomiya. The manga was later turned into an anime and Japanese Drama. While the manga provides a quick story, the anime and Japanese Drama allows the audience to enjoy fully the classical music that is being played.
Noda Megumi prefers to be called Nodame: she was a talented pianist who was able to replay a piano piece even though it was played only once to her. Another talented being in the story was Shinichi Chiaki, who was from a family of talented musicians. Chiaki was listening to a mysterious player’s piano playing, he concluded that the piece was played in a messy way but was astounded that the player had every note right, rushing to the piano room, he missed meeting the piano player.
It was by chance that he realized that his neighbor was the piano player he had listened to earlier on, and when he entered the bedroom he was shocked at the sight of mess and smell. Nodame came to worship Chiaki, who was a good violin and piano player. Thus began a story that is funny yet romantic.
There were a few difficulties along the way, mostly was the race between Chiaki and Nodame, they both seemed to be trying to best one another. Chiaki knew that Nodame was talented, so he forced her to become a better piano player; his arrogance caused her to rebel at times. The audience or reader would realize that Nodame worships her senior Chiaki and Chiaki would sometimes felt threatened by the pace of Nodame’s improvement.
A few interesting characters were introduced to spice up the story more, but none were actually a real threat to their special relationship. The story focused more on their musical journey more than their feeling, but occasionally Chiaki would melt and showed that he cared deeply about Nodame’s happiness.
Their relationship status was the main topic in Nodame Cantabile’s movie, where Chiaki had advanced far in his career as a conductor while Nodame struggled to catch up. Unknown to Nodame Chiaki felt afraid that she would surpass him soon. It was when Nodame went missing that Chiaki realized his feelings for her, and why he had been forcing Nodame to become who he wants her to be: a great pianist.
Nodame Cantabile is not written entirely as a romance story, it is also a story about friendship and hard work. The people you meet along the way, the experience you gained are important in life, but we should be careful not to lose sight of what is truly significant to us.