Fall Anticipated Anime

One of my most anticipated anime that will show this fall (October) is Nodame Cantabile Pari-Hen (or In Paris). This will be the sequel to the first season, which aired last year.

There was a whole lot of anime that focused on the music theme last year and this was one of the popular ones.

The plot centers around two characters in a top Japanese music school. Noda Megumi, a 21-year-old piano prodigy, who despite her talent wants to become a kindergarten teacher. She’s pretty wacky with a few screws lose in her head. She never reads the music notes but plays everything by ear. She’s really unorganized, poor and dirty. She’s also in the “reject” class at school. Everybody calls her Nodame, a portmanteau, or combination, of her family and first names. We learn later in the anime why she never plays according to the rules.

The second character is 22-year-old Shinichi Chiaki who’s at the top of the school and is very gifted in the piano and violin. However, his real dream is to become a conductor. His only problem is that he can’t leave Japan to go study in Europe where all the famous music teachers are because of his fear of flying since childhood. We learn later in the anime why he has such fears. He’s pretty bitter about having to stay in Japan as he watches his classmates move to the music capitals of the world to study.

So it turns out by chance that Chiaki got booted from the top class to the reject class because he got into a fight with his teacher, which led to the meeting between the two characters. It also turns out that they’re neighbors. Nodame falls in love with Chiaki immediately and proclaims herself as his girlfriend despite Chiaki’s obvious annoyance of the girl.

Anyway, the anime isn’t just about love but about facing your fears, past, taking risks and moving on. Furthermore, what makes the anime version of the manga a step ahead is the number of classical music pieces inserted into it (like Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Bach). It’s never really the same reading and watching these kind of anime if it’s about music (like NANA, Beck and La Corda) because you can’t hear it in the manga. And it’s always often the OST that makes the shows memorable.

So the second season picks up from last season and as you can probably tell, they’re off to Paris! Which reminds me… I want to go to France and Europe to visit some friends!