After watching Nodame Cantabile, I fell in love not only with the story, its antics, characters and the classical music but also with the actors behind the quirky musician roles. Tamaki Hiroshi plays the perfectionist, multi-talented, pianist slash violinist slash conductor, Chiaki Shinichi in Nodame Cantabile.

Aside from Tamaki’s awesome anime-like hairstyle in Nodame Cantabile, what caught my attention is his voice – both speaking and singing voice. He has an exceptionally deep speaking voice (it makes me want to melt just hearing it). The first time I heard him sing was this one scene in the Nodame Cantabile Special where he was singing a random song while strolling along the streets with Nodame. After hearing his voice, I just had this feeling he was really a singer off-screen so I did my research and found YouTube performances, an awesome music video and his official site where I first heard his single, SLOW TIME.

Tamaki Hiroshi’s D-Addicts profile

• Name: 玉木宏
• Name (romaji): Tamaki Hiroshi
• Profession: Actor, singer and model
• Birthdate: 1980-Jan-14
• Birthplace: Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
• Height: 180cm
• Weight: 55kg
• Star sign: Capricorn
• Blood type: A
• Talent agency: AOI Corporation

I think a lot of people would agree that he looks best (and youngest) in his Nodame Cantabile hairstyle. He also lost too much weight after NC. I’m looking forward to seeing him again with the same NC hairstyle (and BMI) in the Nodame Cantabile movie in 2010.

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.