I just finished watching both the Nodame Cantabile live action and the anime, and some time prior to this, I watched the La Corda D’Oro anime. What do both have in common? Classical music.

When it comes to manga adaptations, some just don’t translate well into live action dramas, and watching the show makes you cringe. The Nodame Cantabile live action, despite retaining the exaggerations commonly found in manga, was filmed in such a way that makes it really enjoyable to watch. It helps that comedy plays an important part in the series as well. Also, having an interesting plot and a wonderful cast, it’s not surprising that the drama was well received when it started airing on TV.

The Plot

The 2 main characters, Chiaki Shinichi and Noda Megumi (”Nodame”) are students at the Momogaoka College of Music. Nodame (played by Ueno Juri) is an extremely talented pianist, but tends to not follow the score and prefers playing by ear instead. She’s often scolded for her sloppy playing. Nodame is also messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart and loves to eat.

Chiaki (played by Tamaki Hiroshi) on the other hand is talented in piano and violin, and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. He is a perfectionist who is highly critical of himself and others. He used to live abroad when he was young, but is now trapped in Japan because of his phobia for flying. He sometimes refers to himself as ore-sama (俺様), which – how should I put it – is boastful way of doing so.

Nodame and Chiaki meet by accident one day. Nodame instantly falls in love with him, but Chiaki is disturbed by her wacky character. Along the way, they meet new friends, and develop and grow in both their talents and character.

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.

(Partially adapted from Wikipedia.)

The Cast

Ueno Juri was wonderful as Nodame, and her acting left a deep impression on me. (It’s rare that I think that someone’s acting is really good while I’m watching the show, so I guess that says something about her acting.) I think she deserved the multiple awards she won for her acting in this role. Juri-san seems a bit like Nodame in real life; at least that was the impression I got when I saw some of the variety shows she was on.

Tamaki Hiroshi… when I first saw him in the drama, something about him bugged me. Maybe it was the hair, or maybe because he seems somewhat familiar (turns out that I also saw him in Tada, Kimi wo Aishiteru.) However, as the show proceeded, I got totally sucked into his portrayal of Chiaki. He had to learn how to conduct, and also had to memorise the finger actions from pre-recorded videos for his piano-playing when he took on this role. It must have been really tough, because Chiaki is supposed to be really good at these, and that has to come across in his acting. I saw one of his interviews, and he said something about practicing the conducting for one of the pieces for over 1000 times.

Eita did a nice job as Mine Ryuutarou, and he managed to pull off the hairstyle and colour. I liked how Mine developed as a character throughout the series, and Eita did a good job in showing that. Don’t have much to say about him, but it certainly doesn’t mean that his acting pales in comparison to the others.

Koide Keisuke as Okuyama Masumi – Gosh, I totally didn’t recognise him, and I got a shock when I checked out the cast list and saw his name. A total difference from the only other character I’ve seen him as. Masumi-chan is gender-confused and crazy over Chiaki. Masumi-chan provides most of the comic relief in the show, and Koide-san’s acting here always puts a smile on my face.

Takenaka Naoto acting as Maestro Franz von Stresemann… I was very shocked when his character first appeared in the show. He looks totally different from the anime version! Looking tanned and with that hair… I really wondered whether such an image would work, but I guess it did in the end. He NG scene here (starting 1:32) made me laugh. He said something along the lines of “because I had to talk loudly, all my lines flew away from me”, and it was the way he said it that made it so funny. Everything after that was just Tamaki Hiroshi trying not to laugh, but hopelessly failing to do so. Kind of makes you wonder if there were a lot of such incidences, since some of the scenes in the drama are either funny, or kind of ridiculous.

Saeko as Saku Sakura (what a name) – Sakura got more screen time in the drama than in the anime, and I guess the manga too. Not that I mind though – I think she’s cute! And that’s the main thing I have to say about her.

There are just too many people to list, but live I’ve mentioned earlier, the drama has a good choice of cast, and their acting worked together nicely. They seem to get along fine as well, and it makes you wonder how much the crying scenes shown in the final episode was actually real.

Performances

One thing great about the live action over the manga is that you get to hear the orchestra performances. This makes the whole story so much more enjoyable, since music is a central part of the story. I find the live action to be better than the anime in this area as well. While the anime shows the performances, due to budget constraints, many parts of the performances were not fully animated, and I think that this takes away some of the enjoyment.

Not all the performances can be found on YouTube, but here are 2 of those that I enjoyed:

Rhapsody in Blue, performed by S Orchestra, which is apparently made up of students who are underachievers. It’s a very showy performance, but really enjoyable to watch. The mongoose is very cute!

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, performed by the R☆S Orchestra. I like this piece! It’s a tribute to Chiaki’s first performance with the S Orchestra, hence the showy bits towards the end. There was another performance he did that I really liked, but it was in the Special and no one has cut it out so far.

Thoughts

Watching Nodame Cantabile really makes me wish that I can play some instrument. It also made me appreciate classical music more, and I enjoyed listening to the pieces featured in the show. My favourite classical piece still remains as Pachelbel’s Canon though, for reasons I can’t explain. (On the other hand, there are also people who really can’t stand the piece.)

The show has a good mix of comedy and drama, and each episode leaves me wanting to watch more. I guess it’s a good thing that I only watched the drama now, and not as it was airing, because it would be a terrible wait between each episode. 2 movies have been scheduled to air in 2010, featuring the same cast, and the 3rd season for the anime will start this fall. (I most certainly will not mind seeing more scenes of Chiaki conducting. *is tempted to stick 101 screencaps of Tamaki-san here*) I’m really looking forward to it!

Screencaps