Newest manga binge: "Nodame Cantabile"!
Ahh, OneManga is going to be the death of me. After zipping through all 35 or so volumes of "Hana Yori Dango" and all 13 (available) volumes of "Gokusen" in just the first three weeks of the quarter, I got myself hooked on another great shoujo, "Nodame Cantabile."
I just wonder why it took me so long to get around to "Nodame," being a bit of a classical music lover and a former orchestra member (French horn) myself. Of course, I am/was nowhere near the international performance level that the protagonists of "Nodame" are at.
However, anyone with a bit of ensemble or even choral experience can relate to a few key experiences, like touchy ensemble politics (and seat arrangement drama!), awkward romantic relationships between ensemble members, and the relentless drive for perfection.
One thing I can't relate to, of course, is having a conductor crush, given that the conductors I worked with were usually significantly older men who were balding, rotund, and bad-tempered, unlike Chiaki Shinichi, who is handsome, well-figured, and bad-tempered. (Bad-tempered seems to come with the territory...)
I also find it a little hard to believe that Nodame was able to graduate from music school without ever mastering sight-reading, when it's a basic requirement even at high school band competitions.
Still, aside from a few minor technical errors (the "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture" was by Tschaikovsky!), Ninomiya Tomoko does a lovely job capturing the wonder of music on the 2-D page. A few of the tracks she mentioned were already in my classical music collection, while the majority I had to check out on YouTube to discover.
I had fun listening along to the manga, since she did a great job of highlighting the key instruments in each piece, describing their impact. No wonder people wanted an anime/drama of this; "Nodame" would make much more sense to an audience who had experienced the emotional impact of the music firsthand.
I'm not surprised that "Nodame" must've done for classical music in Japan what "Les Gottes de Dieu" has done for wine. Good-looking young people in spiffy clothes, highbrow credentials in a pedestrian medium like manga, and a focus on the sensory/emotional reactions instead of heavy technical details - what's there not to like? :)
I just wonder why it took me so long to get around to "Nodame," being a bit of a classical music lover and a former orchestra member (French horn) myself. Of course, I am/was nowhere near the international performance level that the protagonists of "Nodame" are at.
However, anyone with a bit of ensemble or even choral experience can relate to a few key experiences, like touchy ensemble politics (and seat arrangement drama!), awkward romantic relationships between ensemble members, and the relentless drive for perfection.
One thing I can't relate to, of course, is having a conductor crush, given that the conductors I worked with were usually significantly older men who were balding, rotund, and bad-tempered, unlike Chiaki Shinichi, who is handsome, well-figured, and bad-tempered. (Bad-tempered seems to come with the territory...)
I also find it a little hard to believe that Nodame was able to graduate from music school without ever mastering sight-reading, when it's a basic requirement even at high school band competitions.
Still, aside from a few minor technical errors (the "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture" was by Tschaikovsky!), Ninomiya Tomoko does a lovely job capturing the wonder of music on the 2-D page. A few of the tracks she mentioned were already in my classical music collection, while the majority I had to check out on YouTube to discover.
I had fun listening along to the manga, since she did a great job of highlighting the key instruments in each piece, describing their impact. No wonder people wanted an anime/drama of this; "Nodame" would make much more sense to an audience who had experienced the emotional impact of the music firsthand.
I'm not surprised that "Nodame" must've done for classical music in Japan what "Les Gottes de Dieu" has done for wine. Good-looking young people in spiffy clothes, highbrow credentials in a pedestrian medium like manga, and a focus on the sensory/emotional reactions instead of heavy technical details - what's there not to like? :)