Everyone needs a little crack especially right before school time gets toxic – or so I thought. This is the very desperate excuse for watching Nodame Cantabile (Live Action) right before our midterms week. And I’m kind of hinting some regret here. With my current Nodame-smitten state, I don’t think it’s possible for me to even give my Stat notes a short glance.

For those who still haven’t watched, Nodame Cantabile is a [crack] story about the unconventional relationship between two very opposite musical figures. Girl is Noda Megumi (Ueno Juri), or Nodame, who’s exceptionally skilled with the piano but fails to look at music from a serious viewpoint (i.e. the inability to read scores [memorizes by ear] and use established techniques [plays sloppily]). Boy is Chiaki Shinichi (Tamaki Hiroshi) – cold, OC, genius and established pianist whose not-so-secret desire of becoming a conductor is probably half of what the drama is all about.

One of the main conflicts is Chiaki’s inability to study music abroad due to his fear of riding planes caused by a childhood trauma. Staying in Japan has been what was normal for him but obviously, meeting Nodame would eventually make everything anything but normal. The only obvious conventional part of this drama is how they, regardless of how bipolar, slapstick, and crack-ish they could be, would greatly affect the turn-of-events in each other’s lives and in turn, develop some [odd] sort of romantic relationship while at it.

• Title: のだめカンタービレ
• Title (romaji): Nodame Cantabile
• Genre: Romantic Comedy
• Episodes: 11
• Viewership ratings: 18.79(Kanto)
• Broadcast network: Fuji TV
• Broadcast period: 2006-Oct-16 to 2006-Dec-25
• Air time: Monday 21:00
• Opening song: Symphony No. 7 in A major by Beethoven, arranged by Hattori Takayuki
• Ending song: Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, arranged by Hattori Takayuki

I finished it about a couple of days ago and since then I’ve been

1. reading the manga
2. lurking in all sorts of Nodame-related [forum] discussions and LJ-comms
3. researching as to whether Chapter 123 of the manga is *gasp* what I think it is
4. practicing the Onara Taiso
5. mourning over Tamaki Hiroshi’s loss of weight and change of hair
6. watching Ueno Juri’s very kawaii recording of the Onara Taiso
7. singing second voice to Slow Time by Tamaki Hiroshi
8. [suddenly and surprisingly] having a penchant for classical music
9. having an LSS over Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 in A Major and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and …
10. [I'll stop here for practical purposes]

On the course of doing after-effect number 2, I stumbled upon this: Seven Reasons Why Nodame is the Best Kind of Crack. It practically explains everything I would’ve wanted to tell anyone else who I’d want to infect with my current Nodame-smitten-state-causing disorder.

And I’m not forcing you to watch it especially if you’ve got serious stuff coming up (oh no, midterms). But [please] DO SO ANYWAY! Onegaishimasu! (お願いします) ^^

Streaming is available in MySoju and if you’re longing for HQ, there are torrents in D-Addicts for that too.