Ranked #98

Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter

Story and Character

Paris Chapter is a direct sequel to Nodame Cantabile and picks up where the previous anime left off - with Nodame and Chiaki journeying to Paris to continue their musical education. Besides our two main protagonists a whole slew of new secondary characters are introduced.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to enjoy the development of the relationship between Nodame and Chiaki. Parts were truly hilarious (episode 5-6), some bits were sad and others were "aah" moments that let you reflect on just how much both of them have grown as people. Their music has also evolved throughout this arc.

That being said, there are several weaknesses in the Paris Chapter. First of all, the series is TOO short to fully tell the story in all its glory. Paris Chapter could have been 24 episodes and still we would have wanted more. Because of the shortened length a lot of stuff felt compressed and there wasn't nearly enough plot, or music (we need MORE music) to satisfy me or most Nodame fans. *sigh*

Secondly, none of the secondary characters (fun though they are) quite GRABS you the way the secondary characters did in the original Nodame Cantabile. For example, there is no comic relief that comes even close to Timpanist Masumi Okuyama - I miss him so much! Also the developing romances between any secondary characters in Paris Chapter pales in comparison to the Mine - Kiyora Miki Violin Romance. As for Rui Son - what a wasted opportunity, another plot thread started that just seemed to fizzle into ???

Basically with a little more running time I believe the plot and character development would have been perfect. It only scores as high as it does because Nodame/Chiaki are a truly brilliant pairing.

Art/Animation

The art was very much in the style of Nodame Cantabile Season 1 so there is no incongruity. Paris is lovingly depicted - watching this anime brings me back to when I visited Paris, I could see some of the places I had been and it was easily recognizable. The animators got the "feel" of Paris close to perfect - I guess nothing can compare with the romance of actually being at the river side at night.

Sound

Great soundtrack and sound effects fitting with the anime - I doubt I'll be the only one wishing for more music. Episode 10 is definately the highlight music showcase wise. OP quite ordinary (disappointing really) but the ED is fantastic, one of the more catchy ones I've heard.

Enjoyment

Loved loved loved it. I laughed, cried and anxiously awaited every new episode. Would have been a masterpiece if it were just a little bit longer, enough to make up for some of the "hanging" developments. Still, this did a great job of whetting my appetite for Season 3, I need more Nodame! read more

I usually don't expect much out of sequels, but slice-of-life stories seem like they should have an advantage in that department, don't they?

STORY - This Paris Chapter picks up pretty much right where the first season leaves off. Chiaki is still working to advance towards his goal of being a renowned conductor, and even Nodame seems to have something more concrete in mind for an end result. The general idea of the story is more or less the same, but unfortunately, I think a lot of the charm is lost in the overseas transition -- mostly because their dreams don't seem quite so distant anymore. Chiaki is already fairly well known and well connected; as such, the things that stand between him and what he wants don't seem to be that big a deal anymore. We all know he's capable. This second season gives a little more spotlight to Nodame and her development, but even she seems to have made peace with herself for the most part, so the progression just doesn't seem as interesting.

Episode-to-episode, since it remains quite slice-of-life, the series is still pretty fun and entertaining, but the depth and relevance of the over-arching plot isn't nearly what it was in the first season. It feels more like a continuation of antics because the story had already matured to its height and there's no where else to go. I suppose that's a little disappointing, but at least it doesn't take away from the original series.

CHARACTER - Like the story, I feel like both Chiaki and Nodame had finished all their significant growth and development in the first season and that there wasn't much else to address in the second season. Despite having become an official couple somewhere along the way, there were only small differences in the way they interacted with each other. It was still ridiculously adorable for sure, and it could be said that we do gain some insight on Chiaki's regard of Nodame and their relationship, but I don't really feel much was explored beyond what we could have already figured out on our own. I suppose slow and gradual progression was part of what made their relationship so appealing in the first place though.

Sadly, most of the secondary cast from the first season stays in Japan, and we're greeted with a mostly fresh assortment of support characters in Paris (Kuroki the Oboeist is the only character that reappears). And they aren't nearly as interesting or entertaining as their predecessors. I don't really think there's a specific reason though, honestly; I just had a much harder time caring about them...maybe because they weren't featured as prominently and because none of them really seemed motivated? If they don't care about themselves, then why should I care about them? It also bugged me a little that almost all of them were pianists; variety is good!

ARTSTYLE & ANIMATION - At first glance, Paris-hen seems to have gotten a step-up in budget as far as animation goes. Where season one had still frame after still frame for musical performances, season two has none of that whatsoever. Instead, we're met with a lot of computer-generated music-playing that's fitted in rather awkwardly with the cel animation. Every single performance is animated in the Paris Chapter. Violins move! Fingers glide over piano keys! Chiaki's arms actually wave around when he's conducting! It's pretty neat; I was excited to see instruments move, but after a while, you really start to notice how awkward it looks.

The difference between the CG animation and everything else is too obvious. Chiaki's arms are too stiff. The pianists' fingers are look strange when they move; they're robotic. It isn't terrible, but it's noticeable, and it becomes a little distracting. I think the general character animation took a hit because of it, even in scenes that didn't involve performances. More proportions were off than usual, etc. The animation was never amazing to begin with, so those small things stand out. I'm not really sure whether the still frame panning is better or worse than the awkward CG, but at least they're trying.

MUSIC - You know, for a music anime, Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter has a pretty terrible opening theme. The animation is uninspired, and the song is just... not good. Thankfully, the ending theme is much cuter, and I really enjoyed the multilingualism of it all. We don't see as much variety in musical selections throughout this season as in the first, but that's probably because it's half the length. Almost all of the performance scenes are also markedly shorter, which may bode well for those that got a little bored before, but I was actually kind of disappointed. Even though most of them had been still pans, it took these shortened pieces to make me realize I did really enjoy all those long performances in the first season. I think there's just something cool about seeing characters perform. It's inspiring. In all though, there really isn't much to complain about.

VOICE ACTING - Tomokazu and Kawasumi are still doing a great job with their leads. Chiaki's noise of disbelief is just priceless every time, as is Nodame's "gyabo!" It really impresses me that they manage to find that perfect middle where she says it just enough times to be endearing, but not enough times to be annoying. The rest of the cast's voice acting was pretty average.

One thing I really wish they addressed better was the bilingual nature of the story though. Sure, they're Japanese characters and thus speak Japanese, and obviously, a show airing in Japan will be in Japanese, but still. The way the series starts off is actually really neat as far as this goes -- Nodame is learning French through dubbed anime and it's really hilarious. There are captions indicating when conversations are actually taking place in French but are being "dubbed" in Japanese. But after a while, these indications disappear, and I get confused, especially when random sniplets of French get woven in to the spoken Japanese. Especially when French characters speaking in Japanese weave French into their Japanese!

I have to admit that it was pretty fun hearing the Japanese butcher another language besides English though. XD

OVERALL - Nodame Cantabile Paris-hen was enjoyable. It didn't quite live up to the standards set by the first season, but it was far from being a straight-up failure. As I haven't read the manga or seen the drama, I'm not quite sure how all this matches up with the events there, but it is a smooth follow-up to the original anime. The story doesn't move much, but the characters are still fun and their interactions cute. The visual aspects could stand a bit more improvement, but the sound is still pretty damn solid (excepting the opening theme).

I'm pretty excited for the third season, anyway. Slice-of-life could conceivably go on forever, and I know I said that both the story and characters feel like they've matured to some kind of climax... but despite that, I'm still having fun with them. There's always room to grow. Maybe there wasn't much movement in this season, but who knows what the third season could bring? I have faith. For sequels, that's a pretty rare thing. read more

(A score of seven which is good in my book, but not enough to warrant a 10 of its predecessor.)

Short: Worth a watch, but is a disappointment. Short length hurts flow and character development.

Full Review
When the first season of Nodame Cantabile ended, I was one of the many who had fallen in love with the story and craving for more, migrated to the manga. I was absorbed by the Paris Arc, which took the series into new horizons. So when the second season arrived, I was very excited.

Did it deliver? To the anime only fans yes, but for those who experienced Paris in the manga, this season was more of a disappointment.

More than anything else, the short length of the season hurt it a lot more than one would think.


Story: Taking place in Europe, the second season focuses on the new hopes and dreams that opened up for Nodame and Chiaki. Chiaki can finally work to achieve his life long dream, and Nodame's love and real motivation for music that had sprouted in the first season starts to grow and grow.

Due to the 11 episode length, many things had been cut, and this makes it a lot more centered on Nodame and Chiaki.

Anime only viewers will still be able to get to see the most important parts and the development of the most important couple. While some might like this, side characters have been majorly hurt by this, and many agree the new friends of Nodame and Chiaki just are not the same.


Art: The art style in the second season keeps the same pastel feeling I have come to love in the first season and the characters resemble the manga more. This is nice, and I am grateful for that.

There's a lot less still shots and many orchestra scenes have been animated. However, it looks more awkward than it is pleasing. Chiaki and co. seem to look more like robots than people.

First season rarely had this even if they had way less movements. I sometimes wished they just went with the still shots instead.


Sound: The OP takes time getting used to, compared to the first season which I instantly loved. The ED on the other hand is excellent and nice to listen to while waiting for the previews.

The song being in french is a nice touch I say. Music inside is wonderful of course, I just wished I was able to listen to it without feeling like I'm being rushed to the next key scene and the next.


Character: They took care as to not butcher Nodame and Chiaki's relationship and handled some of the best scenes very well. However we can't feel the sadness of Nodame if she is separated from Chiaki if he comes back again later in the episode or in the next one. In the manga that time was used to acquaint us to the new characters while Chiaki was out of Nodame's scene.

However the anime does not, and as a result they end up paper-thin, only shadows of their Japanese counterparts. They don't feel likable and bland. Mini stories are mentioned in one sentence in the anime, and the artist who allowed for insight into characters' skills was barely introduced.

What was hurt the most was the new couple of the series to fill in for the secondary couple of Japan was paced wrongly and changed. What happened slowly and hilariously happened awkwardly that just feels weird.


Enjoyment: Despite how disappointed I was from the series' most butchered arc, it was surprising fun. It didn't have the heart and charm of the first series, but it wasn't horrible. However, everything felt rushed and I could not shake off the feeling of someone grabbing and pulling me to one thing to another.


Overall: Don't get me wrong, it's enjoyable and some people will enjoy it just as much as the first season. However, if you've been exposed to another form of Nodame, there's a bitter taste that can't be washed. It's recommended to watch this season right after the first one so you can keep some of the spirit from the first. It wasn't really the anime's fault but the length that ruined it.

Despite all this though, I have high hopes for the 3rd season. You should still watch this, but I highly recommend the manga afterwards.
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Could have been much better, but it is held back by poor directing and ends up being a comparatively subpar sequel to the original brilliant series. Still pretty decent.

STORY:
One wonders what could have been with more consistent directing. The story is paced rather slow, and sometimes one gets the impression that this is more a "Life of Chiaki and Nodame in Paris" slice-of-life than an actual story about their obstacles and maturing of character. Indeed, it seems that JC Staff couldn't decide whether to make the anime around the plot or just showcase their daily lives.
And what was with that ultra-rushed ending?

ART:
Simple, clean, flawless, functional and delightfully faithful to the manga's lively expressions.
The CG was, on the other hand, absolutely horrible. The orchestra's playing of the instruments looked more like well-carved stick figures with Flash-like animation than a normal hand-drawn animation. They should have stuck with the default of the original series.

SOUND:
The OP was horrendous.
Other than that, no complaint from this department. The music is significantly better (no doubt due to the improvement of the characters in the story), and would make an excellent OST.....if they'd put it in that.

CHARACTER
While Nodame and Chiaki's well-developed personalities carry the show, the dullness with which character development is made is in general disappointing. Whenever characters in the story are supposed to significantly change in attitude and mental strength, it goes limping by such that one hardly realises it at all. Many times I went "Oh wait, why'd they change so much from something that was put across in such a mundane manner?" It was jarring, and once again I blame the directing.

ENJOYMENT
It is an adaptation that's undecided about what genre it wants to be. Happily, I'm a sucker for slice of life, and what scattered pieces they have tried to direct in whichever genre, they've done it quite well. When it wants to be slice-of-life, it does it well.

OVERALL
Poor directing, and a few decisions which turned out to be big mistakes (looking at the CG and the ending's pace), but thankfully it still turns out to be unmistakeably a decent Nodame adaptation. read more

Note: Will Update every 6 episodes

Paris Chapter is a faithful sequel to the original Nodame Cantabile. If you loved the original, then this sequel comes highly recommended. If you haven't see the original, three's not too much sense starting with this. So the review will mostly deal with whether the sequel lives up to the quality of the original.

The first three episodes were genuinely excellent, filled with the quirky humor, hilarious characters, all mixed with a tinge of emotion... In short, it filled like watching a worthy sequel of the original... almost.

The one drawback is Paris chapter is that events appear rushed. Where's an important concert competition Nodame Cantabile filled an arc of 2-3 episodes, such competitions are covered in a single chapter in Paris Chapter. This results in far less emotional build-up, and makes it difficult to appreciate the significance of these events. This is also reflected by the less spectacular music, given that there is no time to play a piece in full.

Alas, perhaps something like this can't be helped, given that Paris chapter has only 11 episodes, less than half of the original season.

Other than this gripe, most other aspects of Paris chapter are on par to that of the first season. While the water color designs were never my favorite, they do suit the show. Most the supporting characters in Season are new, save from Chiaki, Nodame, and that lewd German Milch. Fortunately the new characters introduced are just as memorable as the one's that they replaced. The OP theme, however, was a little lacking,

Overall, Paris Chapter is still an excellent show, but one can't help but feel that if the creators could have had 24 episodes to work with rather than 11, it'd would be a lot better.




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Nodame in Paris, Cantabile in Frankreich. Und Frankreich bedeutet für Japaner anscheinend fast schon synoym auch Europa und als Europäer bietet man doch gern Kulisse für ein solch unterhaltsames Paar wie Megume und Shinichi!

Der Anime führt die Tradition der ersten Staffel fort und bringt mit dem Lob auf die Klassische Musik auch eine Art Hommage an Europa, seine Musiker und genereller, der Kultur; gibt Anekdoten, Hintergründe und sehr viele versteckte Anspielungen (bspw. sind in Folge 8 Megumes Mungos während der "Rondo a la Turca" ganz in Janitscharen-Tracht), die man leicht übersehen kann, wenn man gewisses Backgroundwissen nicht mitbringt. Aber als Laie der Musikkunst wie auch der Klassik muss ich zugeben, dass dieser Anime nicht viel benötigt, um auch bei ungewohnten Ohren Wohlgefallen und bei bisher Uninteressierten Faszination auszulösen.

Der Autor bietet uns die Gelegenheit, die schöne Stadtlandschaft von Paris, ihre Museen und Theater und ihr großes und modernes Konservatorium zu sehen und zu bestaunen können. Wir bereisen, wenn auch nur im Geiste und in Hintergedanken (tatsächlich ist davon im Anime leider nahezu garnichts zu sehen), über Chiakis Reisen auch mitunter dank Franz von ("Milchi") Stresemann Spanien, Holland, China und andere Orte auf der Welt, und sind sichtlich glücklich, dass Chiaki endlich seine Angst vorm Fliegen auf ein Mindestmaß zurückgedrängt hat (in Europa benützte er wohl dennoch mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit Schienenverkehr) und sich so in seiner Karriere und Können weiterentwickeln kann.

Er debütiert als Dirigent, knüpft neue Kontakte und fasziniert weiterhin. Sein Motto könnte getrost verheißen "Kunst kommt von Können". Auch Megume bleibt ihrer Linie, oder sagen wir lieber, ihrer Kurve, treu und beglückt uns weiterhin mit ihrem grausig-chaotischen Zimmer-Designs, vielen schönen "gyabo"-Szenen, aber auch so manch unerwarteten Genie-Streich, die die besten Künstler und Virtuosen der Cantabile-Welt zum Staunen zu bringen in der Lage sind. Und genau diese Mischung macht es aus, weswegen die Serie so beliebt ist, will man meinen.

Positiv: Nodame Cantabile wird fortgeführt. Nachdem der schwankenden Liebesbeziehung zwischen Megume und Shinichi nun im Finale der letzten Staffel doch noch eine Chance gegeben wurde und ein Happy Ending die Sache für alle erträglich beendete, wird nun diese Beziehung zur Weiterentwicklung nach Paris geschickt. Logische Konsequenz: Megume und Shinichi kommen sich näher - wenn auch die chaotisch-lustige Beziehung der Zwei weiterhin auf Trap bleibt und reichlich Ärger vorprogrammiert ist. Auch schön sind wieder Opening & Ending, wenn auch aufgrund der wenigen Anzahl an Episoden diesmal nur ein Paar davon präsentiert wird - besonders das Outro in französischer Sprache ist ein Genuss und Ohrwurm-verdächtig!

Negativ: Zu kurz? Definitiv! Ich habe die Hintergründe nicht nachverfolgen können und weiß nicht, ob nun irgendwelche Studios gestreikt oder irgendwelche Produzenten oder Sender hier wegen Marketinggründen dazwischengefunkt haben, aber es ist versaut. Das Werk war womöglich auf mindestens doppelt sovielen Episoden ausgelegt, am Schluss kamen jedoch 11 Episoden mit kleinen Aufs und Abs; eine Welttournee (!) Stresemanns mit Assistenz von Chiaki, die über ein, zwei Episoden quasi im Hintergrund ablaufen; wenig Charakterentwicklungen, wobei gar interessante Charaktere auftauchen, um dann in völlige Vergessenheit zu treten; dramaturgische Verfehlung in der Gesamtbetrachtung: Das Finale wirkt wie eins für eine Saison-Mitte, dabei ist es de facto aber ernsthaft ein Saison-Ende, und das irritiert nicht nur, es enttäuscht auch.

Fazit: Alles in allem wieder ein beeindruckender Anime. Ein Muss für Klassik-Fans wie auch Musik-Muffel, aber auf jeden Fall eine Perle von Liebeskomödie und amüsantes Slice of Life! Wir wollen mehr sehen von Nodame Cantabile. Und wir wollen es an einem Stück und in einer Serie, und nicht brockenweise mittels OVAs!
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