google.com, pub-1996401214588839, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 Nodame Cantabile SP-MOVIE ~ Asian Drama Queen

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Thursday, May 08, 2014

Nodame Cantabile SP-MOVIE


Nodame Cantabile SP (Movie)


GYABO!

The 2008 movie special released soon after the drama ended picks up where the drama left off, with Chiaki-kun and Nodame leaving for Paris together.

This is Chiaki's chance to prove himself as a conductor, and before he can meet with his life-long coach, he needs to enter and win a competition.

The pretentiousness aside, this SP turned out to be as good, if not better than, the drama from which it sprang. Fast-paced, ricochet dialogue meant to help cram a ton of stuff into less than two hours worth of film.

Takenaka Naoto as Franz Strezemann (Milch Holstein) appears at the end to drop another portent onto our unsuspecting couple, too. "Prometheus of the Desert" as he refers to this latest order.

The original cast have returned as well, though their on-screen time is very limited - relegated to Mine's father's tiny restaurant, where they meet for drinks, reminisce, and shout the ganbatte stuff again and again, esp. for their hero, Chiaki-kun.

Chiaki-kun goes up against two of the greats in conductor-dom, and he remains confident, precise, and overbearing as he behaved in the drama. He's at the top of the heap one minute, sinks to the depths of despair the next, and then with Nodame's flighty help, rises back to the top bigger and better than before.

In this movie, she's more flirtatious, evoking more of her feminine side, which is a good thing except that Chiaki-kun and his one-track mind aren't interested in anything other than winning the conductor's competition so that he can face his old Senpai with dignity, and with his head held high.

Yah! Whatever, dude. No one ever listens to me when I try to tell them that GETTING LAID helps in stressful situations. No one in Asian Dramaland cares to listen, though.

Didn't quite know what to make of Wentz Eiji as Lantoine Franz, but he wasn't on screen that often to make a fair judgement anyhow.

More important than the cute guys, this time around I felt that Ishii Masanori as Katahira Hajime nearly stole the show. He played one of the contenders for the conductor crown, and he did a great job.

Ah! And, a mystery from the drama is solved!


"...a chicken shit" but whatever. I knew something wasn't quite right with the original interpretation, so there.

Speaking of subs, they were great, then mediocre, then good, then dumb, then great again (depending on who subbed which parts, I think).

They continued to use the word Concerto, too, instead of just Concert.

Not sure how or what to say about the scenery here, either. Being fooled into thinking I'm actually there when in reality I'm not has made me a little gun shy about reporting such things in this blog. Perhaps the stills were real, and glimpses of the inside of buildings as well. Even when they visited the monuments of Paris, I got the sneaking suspicion they were filmed, but that the actual scenes were done in a Japanese studio and not on-sight.

Okay, so now on to the second part of this SP ...


Part 2 of the SP Movie ...

It's Nodame's turn to shine. Chiaki has earned his wings, isn't too afraid of airplanes now, and has signed on with Franz Strezemann as an assistant. They tour Europe and Asia, and while Strezemann does a majority of the conducting, Chiaki-kun is left to assist him.

Meanwhile, Noda is left to her own devices in Paris and finds out the hard way that kawaii doesn't always cut it in the real world. She's got a terrific ear and pitch for music and can play well when she wants to, but she hadn't applied herself too well to the technical side of the music world and now suffers in these advance classes.

However ... music wasn't her initial goal in life. She wanted to teach kindergarten, and then she met Chiaki-kun and wanted to become his wife.

It was toward the end of the drama that Chiaki-kun realized that Noda completed him, and I think this SP Movie was meant to highlight that aspect of their relationship.

One might consider this sexist, and in Japan, there is no such thing, really. In Korea it's macho, and in Japan it's about power. In both cases, men possess each while women are expected to go along for the ride.

At least Noda made her debut in one of the greatest of all European Castles (if we can believe that) - at least we got to get an outside glimpse of the place. She did great, made Chiaki-kun shed tears, and he even finally kissed her afterward.

this appeared twice, and I think the subber got it backwards. 
In this scene, she's become a little fish in a big pond.

always enjoyed and adored the goofy graphics peppered throughout the drama and the movie

case in point ...


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