So much of anime is aimed at teenagers or at people a bit older who still act like teenagers. That’s clear from the places where a great many anime are set and from the ages of the lead characters, especially the protagonist, who more often than not is a middle schooler or high schooler even if the lead is not currently going to school. It’s rare to find anime that focus on adults as a group with nary a cute tyke or wiser-beyond-his/her-years student in sight. It’s not that all of these juvenile shows can only appeal to the juvenile (mind)set, but there are times when one would like to see life beyond the realm of teenage fantasy/drama.
Therefore, one comes to appreciate the rare gems where the setting is college or after, with young adults as the primary cast (even if those young adults still act suspiciously like teenagers some or much of the time). The overblown melodramas of teenagers can be put aside for the more restrained drama of adult life (maybe). The loopy fantasies of the juvenile mind can be pushed aside. It’s not that all shows of that sort fail to entertain (some of them do, though perhaps fewer manage to connect with me over time). It’s that with a slightly more mature cast, it’s possible to try to reach a bit more, haltingly, for real feelings and emotions that connect. The majority of less-mature works aim solely to “wow” the audience. There is a point where one can no longer be “wowed” except by some exceptional work. So why not aim at something “genuine?”
Rather than be wowed, Nodame Cantabile worked by just putting you in a time and a place with a cast of highly eccentric characters (this seems to be a common set up: a bunch of odd and weird young adults attending a postsecondary school focused on the more creative endeavors, be it art or in this case a music conservatory) and setting them into motion. Shinichi Chiaki provides the Only Sane Man to counter and act as foil to this assortment of freaks, none stranger than Megumi Noda (in Japanese order, Noda Megumi, giving us our “Nodame,” from a common manner of forming nicknames in Japan). The comedy is…kind of there. The drama is kind of predictable at times. But what the show provides is some nice music (all Classical) and some interesting emotional connections. Nodame is an utter mess, but one cannot but help to find her fascinating. Chiaki really needs to have someone pull his release valve before he explodes from all the pent-up repression and stress; Nodame is perhaps just what the doctor ordered.
The shame with all of this is Nodame Cantabile is largely unavailable in the West despite the show, at least the first season, being pretty much ready to just send out into the world. The first season has a competent English dub produced in LA with a cast of professionals (several working under pseudonyms, as is not uncommon) that was made for the Animax Asia broadcasts of the show (where English is at least a second or third language for areas where you’ll be hard-pressed to find large numbers of Japanese speakers). About the only thing necessary would be authoring and pressing discs. So why has it never made it to home video in North America?
There is only speculation on that front. The sole way it has been available here has been with occasional bouts of streaming through Sony’s Crackle service (at the time of writing, it’s in one of its periods of not being available and the anime offerings on Crackle right now seem…anemic). So most people think that Sony, specifically the Sony Music Entertainment subdivision which appears to control the international rights to the show, have simply decided that they’re not going to bother.
That’s a pity, since it’s an interesting show. Perhaps the only dim light of hope of any sort is that the manga release here, which was stopped at vol. 16 (of 25) when Kodansha entered the US market and ended their arrangement with Del Rey, now has a glimmer of forward progress: the comiXolgy website (and Amazon) currently lists vol. 17 with a street date of February 28th for an ebook edition. It’s better than nothing, which is what we have in terms of the anime here at the moment.
So, Japan, we’re still waiting on that front.
