Nodame Cantabile Chapter 130
Nodame is in Egypt because she "carelessly got off the bus on my trip".
orz
I just.... N-Nodame orz
Bartender: Okay then, what's your final destination?
Nodame: Final destination...
Nodame: It was supposed to be where he is...
Bartender: Excuse me?
Nodame: But I went there with someone else...
I don't... what does this mean? Well, I know what it means, but augh ;o; What Professor Auclair said to Milch in this chapter is absolutely correct; Nodame really wasn't in this for her own sake or because a career in music was really that important to her. Even when she was telling herself that she was going to be professional, that she was building up what it takes and was facing the music seriously, her end goal has always been just this: to perform with Chiaki on the stage someday. It wasn't to become a better musician or to play music and draw joy from that alone, it's always been about Chiaki and "catching up to him". Which, don't get me wrong, she loves playing music, but to be a performer and making a living off of that is an entirely different spectrum and one that she hadn't really committed to. And okay, maybe this is just me because I am hugely invested in this character and love her to pieces, but I do think Nodame has taken huge strides up to this point to try and achieve her dream - compared to how she was in Japan, she's really thrown herself into this! But it's just the fact that the goal she set for herself is kind of the wrong one, or at least not nearly as far-reaching as it should be. It's not what anyone wants for her, it's not what she should want for herself, because she's immensely talented and could go so much further and to just stop at the goal she's picked and to be satisfied with that is simply not enough.
... which is totally evidenced by the random young guy in Egypt fanboy-ing all over her and her performance with Milch (it was uploaded onto YouTube XD), gushing about how he cried in the second movement and ohmygoshIwould'vebawledlikeababyinperson while Nodame's hostel roommate (MiFua) kind of went "whut o_O?"
MiFua: That was surprising!
MiFua: I never would have guessed you were a famous pianist.
Nodame: I... I'm not famous!
MiFua: But you have fans all the way out here.
MiFua: That's great, being able to touch a person's emotions like that.
MiFua: It seems like I've been affected too.
Nodame: ...
Nodame: That's true...
Nodame: I... did it properly.
Nodame: I faced the music head on.
Nodame: [looking up a little desperately]
Nodame: So, that's enough, right?
Baaaaaaaaaaw Nodame ;o;
There's a bunch of stuff involving Chiaki in this chapter too (and Milch, who ... is his own special basketcase), but that's Chiaki-mun's specialty so I am going to keep quiet on the subject :x
It's interesting though, how everything's kind of flipped. Nodame, who was always focusing on and chasing after Chiaki, now examining her relationship with music. Chiaki, who was always focusing on and chasing after music, now examining his relationship with Nodame. Are they ever on the same page?
On another note, every time I read scanlations/my official Del Ray translations, I keep making a mental note to reign in my usage of Nodame referring to herself in the third person. I know she does it, I've sat and obsessively gone through some episodes of the JDrama to make sure that she does refer to herself in the third person and the earlier volumes in English have her doing this too, but the dialogue works fine without it, her voice isn't lost in its absence, and overall it's less clunky, so! I think I'll try to tone it down a little bit at a time.
Sob, it's sad that I only have time to write things like this when I'm at work orz