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Oct 11 2008

Categories: anime, episodic review
Tagged: nodame cantabile

16 Comments »

MUKYUU!

They actually animated the far away shot of the orchestra, something that wasn’t done in season one where JC Staff just used stills. Still, the animation quality is sparse for a modern high definition series. In the previous season, they made up for it by not using canned orchestral performances. My feeling on Nodame Cantabile has been that it’s at its best when the focus is on the music and not on Chiaki’s and Nodame’s dysfunctional relationship (but it’s a solid second place). With that said, because you cannot hear the manga, it’s the weakest medium of the three. While it is the original and has the most narrative, they are just too many places where you have to listen, and you can’t.

So I end up trying to cue up the appropriate song on iTunes, and it’s just not the same. The anime, though, has some decent musical performances, but it’s lackluster when compared to the live action version where the producers actually brought in accomplished musicians to perform (and even had shadow conductors for all the Chiaki scenes).

Following the Beat

Beethoven’s 7th… the first movement reminds me a lot of a melody Link might play in a Zelda game. They overplayed that first movement for the live action series, and they overplayed the fourth movement for the anime (the second and third are currently crying while nursing a flask of Jack Daniels).

The OP, Sky High, uses the cutout style of the live action adaptation. But… major pet peeve… why doesn’t it just use a classical piece that ties into the series rather than some crappy jpop singing over a mangled classical score? I know they want to sell CDs, but I think they can do better than Sky High. And I’m not crazy about the ED either… just doesn’t fit the musical content of the show. Pick a fitting classical piece; spend some money on a good soloist; turn off the “No Goosebumps” sign; and let ‘er rip. How hard is that?

(It’s like watching Clannad without Megumegu and Dango Daikazoku as the OP/ED. JC Staff should have gone with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto as the OP for the nod to Chiaki and then a cute rendition of Mozart’s What ’bout my star for the ED as the Nodame piece.)

Bar none, the best part of the episode. It’s not the fact that JC Staff sold out the original story (should have been Purigotoda-related) for their own product placement. It’s not the fact that it’s Shakugan no Shana. It’s not that everyone watching knew exactly what character it is. It’s that it looks deformed enough to be Shana-tan. URACHAI URACHAI URACHAI!

(I wanted Nodame in the scene just so we could have gotten a “Kurose” out of Ayako Kawasumi.)

I’m happy for the meido, but I’m disappointed that there’s no Potemayo. See, a real anime otaku would have had a Potemayo.

Why does he have a Nodame poster… ? Can this be considered a recursive loop?

“Help! He’s raping me!”

I see the French have their own priorities…

Sounded like Chiaki was humming “It’s the warm law of men / From grapes they make the wine / From coals they make the fire / From kisses they make the men / From plot contrivance they make Gundam”. I think at one end of the spectrum, Chiaki is a poor man’s Twenty Faces (much like how Amir Johnson is a poor man’s Dennis Rodman). On the other…

… he’s Sagara Sousuke. I’m just disappointed that the Rising Stars Orchestra didn’t end up being like the Rugby Team.

Great Nodame moment where she does a “JA-PAN!” instead of a “GYABO!”

And then there’s Tanya looking like an overdressed Yoko. When Nodame and Frank go to the anime con, I wonder if all the costumes will be JC Staff-related– oh look! It’s Shana! It’s Louise! It’s Taiga! At least in the live action version, we got a mix from Mikuru to Keroro… or am I confusing it with Raki Suta?

One of my favorite parts of the live action version is that when they go to Paris, all the actors speak French and they start running Japanese subtitles… for the first five minutes. Then they had a message apologizing for how hard it’s to read subtitles and promise they’ll use more Japanese from then on. Wusses. If subtitle reading is an Olympic event, I will be the Michael Phelps of that competition.

Ravel’s Miroirs for a whole minute… gah… all five movements available on Wikipedia.