You can compare it to tons of anime that has that general theme of "practice hard and keep trying and reach for your goals"... but that wouldn't give you the whole picture. Each person of the central core of characters is so unique and distinct and finely tuned that it brings the idea of knowing a character to a whole new level. By the end of the series, you know their goals, their motivations, their attitude, their style, their history... and at the center of all these rich, amazing characters are Nodame and Chiaki: the child-like, natural savant without an iota of discipline and the despairing, rigid genius of music royalty who has lost the forest for the trees. Once you buy into the premise that they're both incredibly talented, you find out that they've both been pushed to opposing extremes -- somewhat by choice, somewhat by circumstance -- and over the course of 23 episodes, you can see how they slowly influence each other's lives and music in a way that's realistic and beautiful and charming and heartwarming... how they bring out the best in each other.
It's also really refreshing to have main characters in a romance who aren't your typical strong-assertive-type meets meek-pushover-type. Nodame and Chiaki each have their individual strengths and weaknesses. He's incredibly arrogant and impatient and rigid and controlling. And she's so hapless and quirky and irresponsible and oblivious and... dirty. They both are very attached to their own way of doing things and they both kind of just... bulldoze over each other. When you put them in a room together, sparks just fly. ...And it's really, really fun to watch.
I'm kind of a sucker for guys like Chiaki anyway, but I don't think I'd be the only one to find his relationships with everyone funny and endearing... for some reason, the way he takes care of Nodame is just really funny.
The other thing I really liked about the show was the music. Just amazing music; amazing understanding of music and amazing use of music. I really enjoyed getting to see the development of certain pieces of music from the first run-through to the final performance. I'm not a musician myself and I know next to nothing about classical music or orchestras, so I thought it was a fascinating look at the work and the dedication and everything that goes into the performances. And to my layman's eyes, the imagery that they use to illustrate the feel and the flavor of the individual pieces was incredibly lovely and insightful (see: the ripples at the beginning of the Rachmaninoff piece and the pink flower petals during the oboe concerto). It made me feel like I had been missing out on something amazing all my life -- that's how good of a job they do in expressing the passion and devotion to music in these characters.
I have to say, visually, I got a little tired of the pans across the stunned audience member shots... but most of those scenes was about listening to the piece more than anything anyway. They also tend to do a lot of panning over stills in general, but the pros far, far, far outweigh any cons, so it's pretty easy to not care about that sort of thing.
I could probably nitpick a little about the plot and such if those things bothered me at all while watching the show... but they really didn't, mainly because... well, did the show even have a plot? The "action" of the story is so... inconsequential, that complaining about how something happens is like... missing the whole point of the show. So it's probably enough to say that if you're looking for something that's about what happened or what to do next, Nodame Cantabile might not interest you so much. Frankly, almost nothing actually "happens" except for the mundane or the completely to-be-expected. If you're looking for a show that really seems to enjoy getting to know this group of people and the passion they have in common... this is something you absolutely cannot miss.
I really can't say enough good things about this show; just watch it!! =) =) =)
