Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter was one of the shows that I was looking forward to most this season. Of course, after finishing the first season over the summer, I found and read the manga in my newfound rabid fanaticism for the series. I thought that the story concluded at a pretty good point in the first season, even though it was clear that it wasn’t finished. However, in reading the manga, I’d set up some expectations for the next season.

First of all, it’s very good. If it’s your first time finding out about Nodame and Chiaki’s adventures in Europe, it’s excellent. The problems come only if you’ve read the manga and notice the enormous chunks that are cut out of the anime in order to fit it into 11 episodes. If they had two seasons to work with, I think it would have been much better.

The things that are missing from Paris Chapter are the depth of the side characters and the music. Yes, the story is about Chiaki and Nodame, but the first season had a lot of really well developed side characters like Mine, Masumi, and various members of A Orchestra and RS Orchestra. By the end of Paris Chapter, the only side characters that matter are Kuroki and Tanya. Characters like Rui and Jean Donnadieu that had lengthy arcs were really diminished and shunted aside.

The music also took a hit because of the shorter run. The first season had a few minutes of music performance almost every episode. This is important, because it’s a series that’s about classical music and it’s the one part of the story that you can’t experience in manga form. Listening to the pieces and learning about them was really interesting and this was almost nonexistent in Paris Chapter until the last few episodes.

The problem is most evident in Chiaki’s competition. His last piece was completely cut and Jean Donnadieu is just there to be a guy that Chiaki beats. The last few episodes of Paris Chapter remedies these problems and I wish that the entire thing was as well done as the Nodame’s recital arc. With another twelve or thirteen episodes, even with various arcs cut, we would have time for music and exploring other characters.

None of this ruins Paris Chapter. It’s still more Nodame Cantabile, which is awesome, and it didn’t make me convulse with rage or anything. It’s just unfortunate that it seemed to be hamstrung by a short run.

Tags: Anime, nodame cantabile

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 25th, 2008 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.