Title: Nodame Cantabile Volume(s): 6+ Creator(s): Tomoko Ninomiya Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left Publisher: Del Rey MSRP: $10.95 Genre(s): Romance/Drama Rated: Older Teen (16+)

 

Here's a question I've been pondering for a while now: is it possible to make an interesting comic book that revolves around music? The more I think about this, the more I think the answer is, quite simply, no. After all, music's power comes from the sound it creates, and that sound will either trigger a reaction of love or hate, depending on how your brain reacts to the sound. Another thing is that you can't see sound. If there is one thing that deaf people don't understand, it's music. It's not that deaf people don't like music, they just don't know what music is. I went to a sign language class at my school this year, showed the deaf assistant this book, and I asked her if she could read this and tell me what she thought of it. She gave me her response when I saw her again; her (signed) reply was, not surprisingly, "I didn't get it." I don't blame her. True understanding of music can only occur if you've heard it. Can you honestly explain the difference between rap and country to someone who doesn't listen to either genre?

Most likely the answer is no, because while both genres are full of energy and lots of different beats, the only way to truly understand the difference is to hear them both. Why then, may I ask, does the author of "Nodame Cantabile" believe otherwise? In "Nodame Cantabile," a boy named Masayuki Chiaki is a talented musician. He can play piano, violin, guitar, you name it. Any instrument you throw at him, he can play. Everyone believes that one day, Masayuki will one day be one of the greatest musicians ever. Masayuki, however, does not want this future. Masayuki's passion isn't in playing the piano (which he only plays because his dad is a famous pianist), his passion is to be a great conductor. After getting drunk at a bar one night, Masayuki wakes up to the sound of a piano in another person's house. The person playing the piano is a girl by the name of Megumi Noda, who prefers to be called Nodame. Contrary to Masayuki, though, Nodame is a mess. She's clumsy, aloof, she can be downright stupid at times, she acts like a complete moron for no reason, and she's messy (and I mean EXTREMELY messy). One thing Nodame can do (and do well) is play the piano. Unlike most players, though, she can't actually read music sheets, but if she listens to a song, then she can play it almost perfectly in a matter of seconds. By a strange turn of events, Masayuki and Nodame end up having to do a piano duet at... some contest, I don't remember what, though. I suppose that we are fortunate that these two characters are, personality-wise, polar opposites of each other. If they weren't, I doubt there'd be anything of interest to read in this book. Keep in mind I only complimented that their personalities were different, not that they were interesting characters.

Masayuki spends all the time in this book getting mad and hitting Nodame with a newspaper, while Nodame doesn't even seem to be living on the same planet as everyone else. Their relationship reminds me of no other relationship I've read in other manga. Watching these kids’ relationship "develop" is headache-inducing, and the idea of copycats in other series is quite frightening to say the least. The series moves along though, with these two basically doing the exact same thing every chapter, until we get to a new, equally bad, character. This character is a boy by the name of Nakata. Nakata can play the violin, hates classical music, but he is entering a classical music contest. If this makes any sense to you, please let me know, because from everything I've seen, Nakata really has no reason to be in this series. If this review appears to be all over the place, then part of the reason for this may be the fact that this series is pretty much all over the place, without a very strong narrative to help the characters and story through the book. The author can't seem to be able to decide what this book wants to be about. Does it want to be a romance between these two characters, or is this series really about the music? It would certainly appear that way. Masayuki and Nodame spend almost all their time practicing on the piano for the show, with Masayuki doing much of the teaching. There is also a lot of emphasis placed on Masayuki's desires to be a conductor one day, but why he hasn't made any effort towards that goal seems unclear at this point in time.

What's very problematic about the scenes where the characters are dealing with music is that there is really no way to get any emotional impact from the music they are playing. Sometimes when they play the characters will stand in a pose, their hair will blow, and sometimes there are sparks around them. Otherwise, though, nothing. There are almost no musical notes, no real sound effects, almost nothing to drag us into the moment. Of course, this goes back to what I was talking about earlier, that pictures, regardless of how beautiful they are, can't visualize music no matter how hard they try. Music is not something that can be visualized, and the emphasis placed on the music in this series makes this fact painfully obvious. Bottom line is, you need a music manga to be about a LOT more than just music, otherwise you're already doomed to failure right from the start! But wait, you may point out that there IS other stuff happening in this series besides the music stuff! Well, that may be true, but none of it is worth acknowledging. Yeah, there's the romance, and Nakata (who serves as a rival to Masayuki...why they are rivals doesn't exactly make much sense though), and the whole thing about Nodame not being able to keep her apartment clean for more than five minutes... but really, who cares? None of this matters if you don't have likeable characters, and the characters in this series are far from likeable -- they are extremely annoying college students who act like children sometimes.

Where the author has a chance to save herself is with the artwork, which has some integrity. However, the artwork isn't even that great. Sometimes squiggly and sometimes smooth, the author just can't seem to decide how she wants to draw her characters (hmm, must be a pattern here). Del Rey's treatment of the book is, as always, as good as their high standards are when it comes to releasing manga. Which means the translation is fine, no spelling errors were found, and there is a decent amount of extras to be found at the back of the book. But really, those standards mean almost nothing when applied to a series that is undeserving of those standards. To put it bluntly, this series is a train wreck, from beginning to end. It contains no characters worth caring about, no story that is interesting, artwork that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and it revolves around a subject that is better left to film. I don't blame Del Rey for this disaster. I question why they would want to release such a horribly shoddy piece of work in the first place, but considering what they had to deal with, they did a good job at releasing this book. But what are the people who are actually buying this supposed to think? I don't think they'll think about it much. What is there to think about? The series takes the subject of music, runs with it, and has absolutely nothing to do that can make music interesting in picture form. The series can't even seem to decide what it wants to do with the situations it creates and characters it drags into the story, and as such, several scenes end on a note that make you go "What?" Is there another series about music I can recommend to you more than this? I'd like to think so, but truth be told, if it exists I haven't read it yet. Even so, I can't really recommend this series. Nothing about it really comes together, and what we're left with is more of an experiment than a good series. Pity, I'd have hoped Del Rey could have chosen a better music series to release. I just hope that I never read the series they turned down before deciding on this one.

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -