Nodame Cantabile : Paris
Chapter Review
Well,
it’s not fun to be harsh against a series that I originally fell in love with,
but I have to be honest: The Paris Chapters of Nodame Cantabile are not as good
as the original Nodame Cantabile series. It’s still a fun and engaging series,
but in the end it didn’t live up to the expectations that were created by the
stellar first season.
The
cause of this is definitely not due to the main characters: Nodame and Chiaki
are still wonderful characters, and the best jokes about them are still
downright hilarious, in the same fashion as the first season. In the Paris
Chapter, we can explore both of them as they try to break through in the
professional classical music business. It’s a tale about young adults, just
like you’d expect from Noitamina and it works wonderful.
But
in the end, it feels like something is missing. To start with, the
side-characters just aren’t as interesting as the side-cast of the first
season. It may be because the second season was only handed half of the airtime
when compared to the first one, but even then they feel really bland and one-sided
when compared to the colourful side-characters of the first season. These
people managed to make an impact from the first moment they appeared on screen,
which is what I missed here a bit.
And
then there’s also the matter that the second season just covers a bit more
boring part of the life of the main characters. It’s all pretty straightforward
here: you know these guys are going to break through, when compared to the
first season where they had much more and bigger problems to deal with.
The
animation quality also seems to have decreased: the motion-capture is even more
apparent, and the regular animation feels that it was blessed with a smaller
budget. Still, don’t get me wrong: this series still is very good. A rating of
82,5/100 for me is still a really enjoyable series, and it’s still really fun
to watch. It just doesn’t live up to season one, which was just too good for
this series. Sure, the Paris Chapters serve as a good build-up, but as a
standalone series you do not want to expect the same quality as the first
season.
Storytelling:
|
8/10
|
Characters:
|
9/10
|
Production-Values:
|
8/10
|
Setting:
|
8/10
|
