Nodame Cantabile

 Nodame Cantabile is a manga series involving music written by Tomoko Ninomiya. The story is about a very talented and weird girl.

Noda Megumi (a.k.a NODAME) is a very talented yet very weird pianist studying in Momogaoka College of Music who aspires to be a pre-school teacher. She is very disorganized and untidy. She washes her head once every three or four days. She likes to play the piano for fun and not for a career.

Chiaki Shinichi is a very handsome and talented student of Momogaoka. He aspires to become a conductor like his beloved Viera-sensei; but due to his phobia with airplanes(flying) and ships(ocean), he is not able to go abroad and study or perform.
Unlike Nodame, he is a neat-freak and organized. He is able to play the piano and the violin very well.

The story begins when Chiaki heard someone playing the piano. At first, he was taken aback because of the way the piano was played but as he listened carefully, he realized that despite the sloppy way of playing the piano, no mistakes or note was missed. He went to the location of the sound, and found a girl playing the piano. As he was about to approach the girl, he was taken away by his ex-girlfriend. Then, he got himself drunk and ended up sleeping in front of his apartment. When morning came, he woke up to the sound of a piano playing only to realize that he was sleeping around a pile of garbage. That was there first meeting and since then they were always seen together. Long after they met, Chiaki was finally able to do what he wanted to do, conduct an orchestra, while Nodame was slowly changing and slowly learning to reach a different goal aside from her first, without her realizing it. Chiaki also helps Nodame when she encounters challenges in her musical journey and, likewise, Nodame, in her own special way, helps and teaches Chiaki some of life and music's important lesson and aspects.

As the story progressed, Chiaki became the sole student of a well-known yet perverted conductor named Stressman. Nodame, on the other hand, found herself joining a competition despite her dislike about it in the beginning. Chiaki overcame his fears of flying and sailing with the help of Nodame's hypnotism. Not long thereafter, both was set to go abroad (Paris, France); Chiaki, to join competition and realize his dream, and Nodame, despite not winning the competition (which didn't have a first place by the way) receive a referral to study in France's conservatory of music as a piano student under a well-known instructor and developer of talent named Charles Auclair.

In France, they did not only improve their skills but their relationship and their understanding about each other became deeper and deeper. Secrets that Chiaki normally wouldn't tell anyone was voiced to Nodame. Nodame frantically tries to learn fast so that one day she can have a concerto with her beloved. They also meet new characters who are in their own way weird and talented.

Nodame Cantabile is one of the mangas that one will really enjoy. The most interesting part is the outcome of Nodame and Chiaki's relationship.

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Note: these images are those that I have gathered online. These aren't used for profit but for entertainment purposes only. Thank you to those who posted these photos.... I don't own any of these photos...