Anime Obsession

Lately, I have continued watching more and more episodes of Nodame Cantabile. The manga version came first, the live action TV series later. I am watching the anime version, based on the original manga. The story is about Chiaki, a music student who plays violin, piano and conducts. And it's about Noda Megumi, who is a strange little underclassman at the music school, who is a kind of genius at playing the piano

It's fun for me to watch this series because I can listen to the Japanese, a language I am studying, and read the English subtitles. And, of course, the topic is fascinating to me -- performing music -- on piano -- on violin and in the orchestra.




Often the visual images are expressive and illustrate the emotional aspects of the characters in the series. There are 23 episodes, each about 40 minutes long. I have watched about 16 of these so far. The relationship between the characters is interesting. Also, the series explores feelings of performers such as "competition", "performance anxiety","the will to succeed", "being in the out group or the in group" and so on.



Here is a clip featuring Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, a hauntingly beautiful piece. The clip is 10 minutes long.