Nodame Cantabile Paris 09

Summary:

Tanya's bikini-clad towel exercise spurt is interrupted by the news from her mom that her allowance is being halved; there goes her vacation money! Shinichi returns with his new second hand car and, excited by the prospect of free transport, staying in a castle and hooking a rich husband, she tries to get him to bring her along for Nodame's recital with the Benoit family in St Malo. Nodame quickly forgets Tanya's attempt to seduce Shinichi and requests a slot for her too when the Benoit butler calls up. Nodame introduces Tanya to Yasunori but it's a disaster; Tanya finds Yasunori gloomy while he finds her loud and brash. Shinichi's fear of the sea resurfaces as they visit the outlying islands including the grave of Chateaubriand. Tanya tells Yasunori that she intends to find a foreign guy so that she can live outside her homeland. Leaving Shinichi and Nodame behind, they return to the town for some shopping and clash over their respective fashion senses or lack thereof.

They arrive at the castle of the Mozart-lovin', cosplayin' Pierre du Benoit. Nodame goes to the salon to practice; she's uneasy about Mozart - although she likes to play his pieces, her teachers have never been pleased with her playing. Shinichi thinks the problem is more with her teachers than Mozart and gets to play on a Stein piano from Mozart's era. Pierre shows up and lectures on Mozart all the way through to dinner which is just salad and rice which is as plain as Zen temple food. Nodame's stomach is a bit upset probably from the butterflies for the recital tomorrow. Returning to their room, Nodame asks Shinichi to read Mozart's journals (provided by the butler); learning about Mozart's human side, Nodame comes to appreciate his awesomeness and is able to sleep soundly. Shinichi is confident that tomorrow's recital will be fine.

Reaction:

There's a lot of Tanya in this episode. I read that Author found her "stilted and unlikeable&quot. She certainly comes across as "unlikeable" with her pleasure-seeking and gold-digging but now that she's gotten a decent amount of screentime and some backgrounding, I could hardly describe her as "stitled". I was particularly LOL at the best global warming comment (in the context of her misperception of Shinichi x Nodame being in heat) since Strawberry Panic. Perhaps I was able to skip over any unease about her, due to my Shizuka Itou fanboying and the pace of marathoning this series, until I reached the end (and beyond in the manga) where she becomes a much more sympathetic character in her own right. I do wonder though if Zaitcev would have disliked her any less if she wasn't Russian.

While the journey mostly concentrated on Tanya x Yasunori's terrible start, it shed some insight into how Shinichi helped Nodame to see her relationship with Mozart in a different light, separating it from how Mozart was interpreted by her teachers and herself. By giving her an opportunity to behold the man, Nodame is able to bypass the mediation of her instructors and converse in Mozart directly with her audience in the coming recital. I found myself thinking of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke ventures into the Dark Side Cave and gaining a perspective into how many things depend on how you orientate your point of view.

Related posts:

1. Nodame Cantabile Paris 10
2. Nodame Cantabile Paris 11 (Final)
3. Nodame Cantabile Paris Review