For lovers of classical music, NODAME CANTABILE is a winner of a manga.  No giant robots.  No geeks.  No evil scientists.  NODAME CANTABILE is just good solid characters and an offbeat romantic plot that is framed by music, music, music. Winner of the Kondansha Manga of the Year Award in 2004, Tomoko Ninomiya’s NODAME CANTABILE has gained many fans as a manga and a live action television series in Japan.  Currently, an anime of this story is running in Japan, and no doubt will find its way here eventually.  Good!  Then we can hear the music we read so lovingly about in this story.  In the meantime, we will have to satisfy ourselves with collecting the various CDs of music from the series that have been released in Japan and are now available here. 

To recap the story so far, Shinichi Chiaki, son of a famous musician, and a gifted conductor in his own right, finds his dreams of studying abroad and continuing his training no longer grounded by a fear of flying.  Having mastered that, he is now readying himself for a new life, and preparing to leave the Rising Star Orchestra, made of his fellow students at a prestigious music school for a bright future abroad.  Fellow student Megumi Noda, also known as Nodame, is also a musician, who cannot read music but plays the piano in an incomparable Cantabile style that mesmerizes all who hear her.  She is Shinichi’s biggest fan, despite driving him mad with her inability to stay tidy, cook, or conduct herself in a less than oddball manner (she often speaks of herself in the third person).  But instead of being clingy, she is striking out on her own, plyaing in piano competitions, and obtaining success along the way.

In Volume Nine, the problems for Nodame begin almost immediately.  Switching pieces in mid performance, Nodame shocks the audience during an important competition.  She then retreats home to her family, abandoning her music completely for a time.  What prompted her to do such a thing?  Why does she drop off Shinichi’s radar?  What was it in her past that shaped her attitude towards music in the present?  These are some of the issues explored in the story, while Shinichi starts to wind up his life in Japan.  When Nodame is offered the chance to study in France, however, things begin to change.  She has already rejected an offer by Shinichi to go with him to Europe.  Now it seems the pair will be much closer in the future after all.  How will this affect their strange relationship?  When Shinichi goes to find Nodame at home- quite some distance from the university- he finally realizes something more is happening between them.  Where this will lead, no one knows.
Tomoko Ninomiya has brought us a fine little romance in NODAME CANTABILE.  Gently paced, and yet energized with so much wonderful music, this manga succeeds in the tough job of making the sounds we hear in the concert hall come alive on the printed page.  Soaring with the strings and woodwinds is the passion felt by the young musicians for their craft- and each other.  The students are often conflicted, struggling realistically to balance- often unsuccessfully- the two in the story, thus giving some semblance of reality to the work.  In this way the manga works wonderfully.  The art is still peculiarly out of step compared to some other shoujo manga.  There is nothing florid in the drawing.  Characters are simply drawn, looking quite flat against toned backgrounds.  Yet, the artist/author has carefully observed her subjects, and even frames with audiences watching concerts in progress show a variety of reactions on the faces of the people there.  Instruments and performances are pictured as one would see them if watching such objects or events on television.  If you have had any experience sitting in concerts, you would understand what I mean.   

IN SUMMARY:
NODAME CANTABILE is a shojo manga that balances quirky characters with a love for fine music in a moving duet of musical form and personal function.  Love is in the air, on the stage, and in the notes these people play as well as in the beating of their hearts.  If real world manga appeals to you, NODAME CANTABILE will soon find a place in your heart too.