Nodame Cantabile by Tomoko Ninomiya (amazon.com)

I really don’t need to be following any more manga series, so I avoided Nodame Cantible for a period of time, despite suspecting that I would really enjoy it. Alas, after an impulse purchase shortly after pay day, I found myself in possession of volume 1 and now I’m afraid I’m hooked.

Shinichi is an ambitious student of classical music, who finds his goals thwarted by his fear of flying and traveling by boat, which would prevents him from going to Europe to study with his favorite conductor. He takes piano, but he really wants to be a conductor. He’s arrogant, and after a fight with his teacher he finds himself dropped from a prestigious completion and assigned to a different piano instructor who only deals with drop-outs.

He meets Megumi Noda aka Nodame, an extremely eccentric piano student. She mainly learns by ear and excels at improvisation. This disorganized quality carries over to her surroundings – her apartment (conveniently located next door to Shinichi’s) is a pigsty. Although someone as arrogant as Shinichi might be expected to treat Nodame with disdain, he finds himself treating her like a wayward puppy almost against his will. He cleans her apartment and cooks food for her, since it seems she lives only for music and doesn’t pay attention to details like washing issues. He also works with her on the piano, and improving her precision has an added benefit of making his playing more expressive.

Nodame proclaims her love for her new sensei, but Shinichi still seems to view her as an entertaining oddity and pet project. He does react strangely when Nodame partners with a rebel violinist for some exams. The classical music setting is enjoyable, and I’m interested to see how the relationship between Shinichi and Nodame develops. They both have such quirky personalities, I’m sure there’s plenty of story to explore as they develop as musicians.

Besides the manga, Nodame Cantabile is also an anime and drama.