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ローゼンメイデン 
October 10, 2008 | 
36 Comments
OP Theme: 「SKY HIGH」 by The Gospellers - AVI version (31MB)
The story of our favorite stalker and her subject of obsession continues in this sequel. I find it amusing that these two end up getting to know each other because Nodame basically follows Chiaki around. Now she ends up following him all the way to France, although to be fair, he did ask her to come with him. Anyway, the first episode is pretty good and solid from both story and animation POV. I do wonder how much of the Europe arc the anime is going to cover. I haven't been following the manga so I don't know if it's near completion or not. I sure hope that this will be like Honey and Clover, where the manga serialisation ends a few months before the anime is scheduled to end. That way we can have a perfect anime ending that is similar to the manga version.
Nodame and Chiaki finally arrive in Paris and proceed to their apartment. Nodame is happy to see a piano inside her apartment until she finds out that said piano hasn't been tuned yet. In contrast, Chiaki's piano is not only a Grand Piano, it has been well-tuned. The two quickly meet two other music students residing in the same apartment, Frank, who is a hardcore anime fan, and Tanya, a tart who aspires to marry a rich guy. Frank and Nodame have actually met each other so Chiaki is a bit surprised about this, especially after the supposedly gaijin Frank plants a kiss on Nodame's cheek. Despite this, it's obvious that Nodame's obsession reminds with Chiaki. Later on that night, Chiaki and Nodame go to see a recital before going to dinner at a French restaurant. Nodame is impressed by Chiaki's ability to speak French but when he goes to a toilet, a waiter comes to tell her that they no longer have tartar steak. Since Nodame can't read French that well, she ends up ordering Escargot (snails in butter sauce). Chiaki is livid because they already ordered a seafood platter but Nodame claims that she wants to eat it.
Realising that Nodame can't speak French very well, Chiaki gives her a French dictionary so she can practice her French. Not surprisingly, Nodame chooses some amusing sentences to learn like "I'm a housewive and this is my husband" and the very delightful "Help, call the police, I've been raped". Yeah. This causes the waiter to think that Chiaki is a dirty rotten customer. Because he's pissed off with her, Chiaki ends up inadvertently insulting Nodame's taste. Nodame is not happy about this and points out that she wants to go back to Japan. She points out that prior to coming her, it's Chiaki who was holding onto her in the plane. Later on, however, Chiaki realizes that Nodame has tried her best. The next day, Nodame already forgets last night's incident and want to go sightseeing with Chiaki. Back in his room, Frank explains his Otaku background in a creepy-like tone. He then realizes that he might have to clean up his otaku-styled room before Nodame sees it. Much to his surprise, Nodame is immediately drawn to his PuriGorota video and ends up practicing French from it. Tanya decides to use the opportunity to seduce Chiaki but ends up getting a stern piano lesson from him instead. A few days later, Nodame is getting better at speaking French thanks to the PuriGorota video that she watched in Frank's room.
Impression:
The Story
The most memorable scene from the first episode has to be Nodame learning French and inadvertently sounding like she's asking for help because Chiaki raped her. :o The expression on the waiter's face is priceless and so is Chiaki's when the waiter tells the other waiters about Chiaki's filthy deed. It reminds me of this very amusing English lesson for Japanese people. Wait till you get to the part where three gym-clad girls singing "I was robbed by two men". And then there's this totally NSFW One Point English Lesson, which is obviously a parody. It's even better if you actually understand Japanese because the translation does not exactly describe the hilarity of the real line. Anyway, back to Nodame itself, the addition of Frank and Tanya are pretty good. It's a bit weird hearing these supposedly French-speaking characters speaking Japanese (even though the show clearly suggested that it's French they're using). The biggest development here is Nodame and Chiaki fighting about Chiaki's snotty attitude towards her. Chiaki and Nodame is a strange couple. On the one hand, Chiaki often looks like he doesn't want to have anything to do with her. From time to time, however, he does look like he cares about her well-being. I wonder if it's because he gets used to having her as a company or if he really appreciates her presence. Aren't the two correlate to one another?
The Characters
Nodame and Chiaki are slightly changing. Nodame seems a lot more assure of herself and refuse to take crap treatment from Chiaki like she used to. This is good because I don't think the relationship between the two is a good thing if she continues to take his abuse (no matter how humorous they are sometimes). Chiaki seems to be more sensitive to Nodame's presence and appreciates what she's done for him. I just wonder if he feels this way because he likes her or if he feels indebted to her. The later is not a good thing. The two new characters, Frank and Tanya are stereotypes of anime fans and a Princess but I hope they get some character development in the future.
The Music
I'm personally not that impressed with the opening and ending theme. But then again I have a weird music taste so maybe that's not a good pendulum for anyone. The rest of the music are serviceable and the classics are as good as ever.
The animation style
The background seems to be higher in quality than the first season. They are a lot sharper and offer better details than the background in the first season. The character design, however, looks a bit off but maybe it's just because I haven't seen it for a long time.
The voice acting
You guys already know my opinion on Nodame's VA so I won't repeat it much except that I still don't think it's suitable for the character. It's overly cute for my taste and I think Nodame should sound more crazy-ish, just like Ueno Juri did her in the live action version. Chiaki sounds perfect though. Frank sounds a bit pedestrian although that's probably a good thing. I still haven't been able to wipe the horror of seeing the character played in such over-the-top manner by Eiji Wentz in the live action version. Tanya sounds okay as well.
Poll
In your opinion, is Chiaki attracted to Nodame?
ED Theme: 「東京 et 巴里」(Tokyo et Paris) by Emiri Miyamoto x solita - AVI version (30MB)
gyabooooo!
Er, unfortunately they're still in Paris/Europe in the manga, and the manga-ka just went on maternity leave.
nodamee chan =P crazy as ever..
btw garten, are you going to post VK guilty ep 1?
Like you said, the have a pretty broken relationship.
One of the things I like about the Paris arc is that the mangaka starts to take some of the tropes from the undergrad years and face them more realistically. I think most of the characters get a lot less stereotyping this time around.
I would say the Christmas fight is one of the best examples of that...which is why I absolutely hated the tone of the live version of the fight.
In the more recent chapters, he has been more obviously not just attached, but attracted to her. But at the same time they've chosen a career path that pretty much guarantees they'll only see each other sporadically.
btw garten, are you going to post VK guilty ep 1?
I will :)
Well, if you're following the manga (I'm purchasing the Chinese translation from Tong Li), the Nodame-Shinichi relationship is an emotional roller coaster, largely due to Shinichi's tendency to ignore the people around him when he's working - he is very much his father's son and of course, Megumi's own insecurities when compared to another prodigy, Sun Rui.
I'm glad I managed to catch up with the first season just a few days before this aired!! ^^ Looking forward to more ~Mukyaa! goodness XD
...and yeah, like L-chan said, the possibility of Nodame Cantabile ending soon is quite bleak given Ninomiya-sense's maternity leave... x__x;;
As for Chiaki and Nodame's relationship, I personally think that the feeling between them is really mutual. Chiaki might seem attracted to Nodame's piano skills and nothing else, but the fact that music is representative of Nodame's character as a whole simply means that Chiaki is indeed attracted to Nodame. Just my [confusing] two cents :)
They're still in Paris, but I don't think it would be hard to make a temporary ending.
I've thought a lot about Chiaki's and Nodame's relationship, it's still quite unclear. But I can contrast it with his relationship with Saiko. I think Nodame provide the sort of loyalty and dedication and tries her best to cheer up Chiaki (whether it works or now), versus Saiko, who would eventually get tired and dump him. But Nodame's personality is so inconsistent/unpredictable...
Oh, and it's not just you, I think the character designs look a little off too =/
Now I'm getting flashbacks to that Monty Python sketch.
"My hovercraft is full of eels."
"Do you want... Do you want... to come back to my place. Bouncy bouncy."
The opening is actually lyrics fitted to part of Rachmaninoff's piano concerto no. 2 3rd movement (you can hear it in the live action 5th ep towards the end) Kind of weird to hear it like that...
Who gets a red wine from Alsace? Perhaps a Pinot Noir, but still, the French is fairly... broken...
Mukya!
On a vaguely more serious note, could Emiri Miyamoto x solita have based their ED theme on an easier chord progression? Pachelbel's Canon in D? Really? Everyone, including me, loves it, but still.
Yes, the OP uses alegro scherzando from a little under 2 minutes in.
the french speaking parts are way to weird especially the purigorota one (it was impossible to understand a single word). Anyway the show would be better with french accent like the ending instead of japanese pronouciation
I didn't notice the higher quality background, but I did notice the deterioration of character designs so I don't think you are the only one who thinks that. I did like the ED (probably because I don't understand a thing about french;;;) but OP was meh~. You know, for some reason, I'm not as excited for this series as I was for the first season. I was actually quite excited when the second season was announced, too. ~_~
Yea, I agree the animation seems better...but the character design and the characters themselves seems a bit weirder than usual (design-wise).
It also have some slight changes from the manga, like cutting off Nodame's explanation of how she managed to passed the exam even though she doesn't know any French.
Overall it seems different...maybe because it's not done by the same director as the first season.
I think Omni mentioned that too--the supposed deterioration of the character designs--in his blog, though maybe I imagined it. I'm thinking that it might just be a trade-off of sorts since this season, J.C. Staff opted to animate orchestra movements as opposed to sticking with static pictures.
i donno. i'll prob. d/l this again but not watch it.. i'm alittle tired of these nth iternation of the same story(there's already a really good dorama out there) (ie . honey and clover..) it's not that fun anymore when you know exactly when and what things are going to happen....
i just think maybe i'll watch it someday when i've forgotten the story...
I'd take character design deterioration over static orchestra. However, watching the dorama really has spoiled this anime for me. It's not the same as knowing the story from manga, with dorama I already have memory on visuals, sounds and timing, so consciously or not, I'm comparing the two. ^^;
OP and ED are nice though. I like how they use Rachmaninoff concerto no. 2 for the OP!
I spotted the strange character design differences as well, but mostly in Chiaki and not so much in Nodame. His eyes seem smaller and face longer, so overall the balance of his face is off. I don't know if its intentional as to symbolize "growth" or if it really is just sloppy handiwork though :/
Overall solid first episode -- excited for the rest!
nice first episode. i love the ending song. wow it was great, i love how they made the anime exactly like the manga. love it!
I L-O-V-E LOVE THIS SHOW! Hahaha, Chiaki's a rapist.
As for the poll, Chiaki, although he tends to hide his emotions, even to Nodame sometimes, I think he is attracted to her. Not for her looks, but for who she is. She has changed him in more ways than one and you can tell, through the way he caressed her face, he possibly loves her. I don't think he has ever loved anyone before, so I'm expecting him to be resistant to the whole concept of "true love" if you consider the recent chapter of the manga. Meaning.....
**SPOILER**
Will You be blogging the new jigoku Shojo?
Yes, I think Chiaki does like Nodame... despite all the stalking. LOL
It was great watching this arc animated... but as I feared, to me it wasn't nearly as funny as the live-action special. Even Nodame's "he raped me!" scene was funnier in the live action (though it's been a while since I saw it... maybe they changed it to "he robbed me"?). Anyways... both anime and live action are really funny.
dead blog is dead
at least say goodbye garten!
dead blog is dead
This blog truly is dead. Pity, I really loved it. It was fun while it lasted.
at least say goodbye garten!
Uh, sorry guys. I'm not announcing my death just yet. I'm just extremely busy w/ real life and hasn't had the time to blog. I'll try to blog something this weekend. Once again, I apologize.
reading this "dead blog is dead
October 22, 2008 | sunsetterxxx wrote:
at least say goodbye garten!"
totally made my day LMFAO, how can you guys think like that garten said a while ago that life got busy and she re-stated it ^ , wait 2 weeks before saying THIS BLOG IS DEAD ....why not say this blog is currently inactive -,- ...anyway take your time garten =O
at least post a post per week or something...
leaving your blog just like this would be such a shame
at least post a post per week or something...
leaving your blog just like this would be such a shame
>"...anyway take your time garten =O "
this.
and btw:
>"and she re-stated it"
Is garten a she? O-O I've always thought of Garten as a male lol
i think it is enough for the readers to just get posts on the impression garten has about the episode instead of giving a word for word breakdown of what happened in the episode. thats the reason why i read because i always find that part to be really interesting. also it would save him a lot of time
=o really, i unno about garten's gender =,= not that i care about it..
Garten if your a guy =P sorry,
Garten dun die~~~ I really luv ur blog. U can't die yet!!!!
I think the art looks a little off ~~~
Hi there,
LOL I did NOT know they were airing a 2nd second of Nodame - Yatta~!
Thanks for the great summary! I thought I was the only one who thought the French guy (his name is Frank?! O.O) was over done in the live action version =)
BTW - In this line Despite this, it's obvious that Nodame's obsession reminds with Chiaki. I think instead of reminds you meant remained?
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