Nodame Cantabile: Finale

Title: Nodame Cantabile: Finale Genre: Musical, Romance, Comedy Rating: 8.7/10

Summary: It's Nodame's third and final year at the Conservatoire de Paris. Her dedication to become a professional piano player and Chiaki's consolidation in Europe are making their skills and experience flourish, but they also seem to be forging unfavorable consequences into their relationship. Forbidden by her teacher to participate in contests, Nodame feels that the gap between herself and Chiaki is expanding to a dangerous length. The love & music story continues between Noda Megumi, the talented yet distracted (almost childish) piano player, and Chiaki Shinichi, the prodigious, always focused on advancing forward, orchesta director. How love will finally find its way for this two persons. Will it be able to surpass the challenges ahead or will it die prematurely. Paris, the city of light, is the more accurate place to find out how this "love musical" will reach its finale (ANN).

Review: The final season for the Nodame Cantabile has finally reached its end, and I am rather pleased with it. As you can see the finale has received a higher score than Nodame Cantabile and Nodame Cantabile: Paris. A lot of the faults I found in the first two seasons were changed in this one. The biggest change that I would like to point out is the art work. The characters and scenery didn’t change (which is fine), but the animations did. During the concert sciences in the second season, I noticed a lot of problems with the players movements. The players looked very out of place, giving an obviously computerized looked, killing the entire musical performance. However, during Nodame Cantabile: Finale the movements were a lot smoother and looked as though the characters were actually playing. The finger movements on the piano, arm movements of the conductors, and even breathing of the trumpeters looked natural. The story progressed smoothly and well, leaving any drama filled moments till the final episodes. Overall I would say that the goods from seasons one and two were brought into this season, and the bad taken out. I did have one problem with it, however. Despite knowing that this was going to be the last season of Nodame Cantabile, the producers decided to leave an open ending. The conclusion wasn’t as solid as I expected it to be, considering how much they built up in the final three episodes. I do understand that some people like opening endings, but this one really could have been done better. The ending wasn’t horrible, and it does leave the audience with some imagination to what is going to happen next (good or bad).

Final statements: Nodame Cantabile: Finale did a great job of bringing the characters closer together, focusing a lot more on the romance scene of the anime. Comedy was lacking slightly, but still gave me a chuckle. The art style drastically improved, and the soundtrack was as good as ever. If you are a fan of the first two seasons this is a must see. As for everyone else, watch the first two seasons! High priority watch.