K-ON! CD cases

Unfortunately, it was essentially a choice between CD cases and dinner, and I chose dinner. (Why, I’ll never know.) By the next day, these babies were sold out. Everywhere. I was devastated.

A Yahoo! Japan auction, a deputy service and approximately 4 times the RRP later, they’re mine. MINE. Welcome to the life of obsessive K-ON! fangirlism.

Nodame Cantabile

I actually started rewatching Nodame before the whole rewatch thing came up (so I’m an addict, sue me), which means I’m going to end up rewatch-rewatching the first part. Not entirely a bad thing. But, as the title suggests, this post is a prelude (will I be using cutesy music-joke names for all my rewatch posts? Probably), so I’m going to run over why I like this series so much.

For those who missed the boat, Nodame Cantabile is a 2007 anime set in a specialist music college, based on the manga and followed by 2008’s Paris Chapter. A third and final season was set for this fall, but seems to have been pushed back a season. The series follows the fortunes of expert pianist and violinist and aspiring conductor Chiaki Shinichi, whose world is turned upside-down when he meets the, well, completely batshit insane and unhygienic pianist Noda Megumi “Nodame”. It’s essentially a love story interwoven with classical music and large lashings of comedy, and well worth watching (though I felt the J-Drama was better).

I’m usually huge on visuals in anime; if I don’t like the style, I won’t watch it, and Nodame’s animation has none of the prettiness or cuteness I adore. So why do I like this series so much? The answer, I think, lies in the music.

As a series set in a classical music academy and based around musicians, Nodame is filled with pretty piano pieces, emotional duets and lavish orchestral music. Like Chiaki, I play violin and piano, and have gone through much of the repertoire featured in the series at some stage. It’s more than that, though – Nodame Cantabile inspires. It’s been years since I took piano lessons, but after hearing pieces in the series, I’ve pulled up the music and thrown myself into learning them. It’s important to establish a connection with viewers, and this is mine. (I love K-ON! for similar reasons.)

Apart from that, Nodame isn’t too different from most other romantic comedies. The depth of character is pretty decent, there are some interesting characters, the visuals are mediocre. To be honest, I think the music integration is better in the live-action, where it’s used as background music as well, but I’m happy to watch the anime while I wait for next year’s LA movies. And I really don’t know what I’m doing, so this is enough for a first post. =_=