Nodame Cantabile 7-10

While I'm glad that, with my limited bandwidth, I can watch this series on Animax, it's a bit inconvenient to adhere to the broadcast schedule (or even the repeats), particularly with Wimbledon on right now.

Ep 7. I loved how Nodame's piano playing caused Chiaki to see his relationship with the S Orchestra in a new light and eventually allow them to work together to triumph over the hapless A Orchestra who also had to deal with Stresemann's last minute sabotage. Not so hot on the Puri Gorota thing as I'm generally not too keen on anime within an anime - Gekiganger was probably my least favourite thing about Nadesico.

Ep 8. LOL at learning about Stresemann's connection to Momogaoka; I can understand, to a certain extent, how you can just drop everything and head over to somewhere far away just because someone, who's 'just a friend', asked you to. It seems that the Chairwoman is setting a big plan to not let Chiaki's talent go to waste into motion but what's even more intriguing is how Stresemann also sees Nodame in the same light - but the person to do that job will have to be Chiaki I guess.

Ep 9. Enjoyed the good vibes of Chiaki, via Stresemann's antics, being able to gain more experience and recognition at the Nina Lutz Nagano music festival. But I was also happy that our title chara also managed to shine in the end. Like Lutz, I was rather cheesed off with Nodame and, like Chiaki, disappointed that she didn't seem to have any intrinsic motivation to play the piano well. But given that Nodame seems rather odd (she seems cheerful and carefree but her messiness and screwball behaviour seems to indicate the former could be a reaction to some kind of deep trauma and rebelliousness), she might not be able to benefit from being 'discovered' by Lutz and that the pressure might actually crush her. So, in contrast to Garten (from whom I've taken the screencaps from), I'm glad that Nodame was able to show us her talent but leave it for future eps and someone else to blossom fully.

Ep 10. Nodame and the S Orchestra crystallize another important lesson for Chiaki. Sometimes there's tellin' and sometimes there's showin'. I was completely LOL at the mongoose story and finally understand why Nodame is in that costume (which I thought was a squirrel) in the ED. And a bombshell from Stresemann right at the end - how will it affect Chiaki's performance?

Related posts:

1. Nodame Cantabile 11-14
2. Nodame Cantabile 19-22
3. Nodame Cantabile Paris 03