Nodame Cantabile Vol 11

Rating T+ Genre manga Publisher Del Rey External Links Official Nodame Website

It’s the big competition and Chiaki has cleared the preliminary conducting rounds to reach the finals. Going up against other talented composers, Chiaki wins only to be abducted and tortured via tickling to make him sign the contract with a powerful European company to tour with his former teacher. Sadly, this happened just as Chiaki was beginning to realize that he may indeed have feelings for Nodame. To recap, Nodame is the world’s best and worst musician. She can play cantabile with such energy that no one can come close; however she is horrible at sight reading. With Chiaki gone on tour, Nodame must fend for herself at the conservatory in Paris. The relationship between Chiaki and Nodame has become strained since she has seen pictures of him with other women on his tour. It isn’t long until Nodame makes her own friend, a homesick Chinese student.

The great thing about this story, even though it’s a typical boy meets girl shoujo story, is the concentration on music. It’s not just in the backdrop, it’s in the forefront. These characters live and work for music and the manga reflects this. Everything from dinner to love to school revolves around the basis that the world of musicians isn’t all glamour but is hard work and cutthroat. It’s a real world manga free of transformations or magic. The relationships are believable, especially between Chiaki and Nodame, not to mention with the other students as well. The humor is nice, nothing too over the top, but enough to get a good chuckle. The artwork is also very minimalistic. It is unlike many shoujo manga out there that have the girls super good looking and the boys as bishounen. The character designs look almost dated and reminds me of older manga like Galaxy Express 999 or Lupin III. It’s a nice shift away from the superfluous style that a lot of manga fall into. The nice thing about this manga is that at the end, the translators list the different sonatas and music that are included in the manga. So if you want to know what the music sounds like, you can easily look it up and listen. There is currently an anime, live-action, and video game based off this series.

Although it’s a romantic comedy, I’m looking forward to learning more about Nodame and Chiaki’s achievements as musicians than learn about their personal progression. It’s nice when the romance plays second fiddle to the main story, as in most cases it does. The humor is nice and flows well throughout the volume. I would highly recommend this manga.