Nodame Cantabile – 04

Summary:

A mysterious old man is walking through campus with a guide book on Japan and is peering into various practice rooms around the school. Although word gets out that there’s someone creepy lurking around, a clueless Nodame isn’t on her guard when he approaches her. She tries to give him directions to get a taxi, but he insists on having her show him and offers her dinner. When Nodame remembers that her mother told her not to follow strangers, the man claims he’s not a suspicious person and introduces himself as Milch Holstein from Germany. Nodame decides to take him to a place with good food, which turns out to be none other than Chiaki’s apartment. Chiaki is of course pissed off that she brought back a stranger and realizes that Milch Holstein is a fake name (milch means milk in German and Holstein is a type of cow). Milch then notices that Chiaki has a picture of Vieira on his bookshelf and asks about it. Chiaki calls Vieira his conducting teacher and takes offense when Milch verifies that Chiaki wants to be a conductor.

Having learned that Chiaki is one of Vieira’s pupils, Milch decides to take Nodame to the sushi restaurant at his hotel. Seeing Milch ready to do dirty things with Nodame, Chiaki gets her to come back to him by offering to allow her to sleep in his bed tonight. Once he gets Nodame back, Chiaki shuts Milch out of his apartment, but he has no intention of sleeping with Nodame, so he kicks her out too soon afterwards. The next day, Chiaki has his request to transfer departments ready because he wants to go over to the conducting major. Before he can turn it in, Mine comes to tell him that the school has a new conducting teacher: the legendary Franz von Stresemann. Chiaki can’t believe that such a big name would be here, but he’s even more shocked when he finds out that Stresemann is actually Milch. He realizes that this means he can’t transfer majors. At that time, Stresemann is in the faculty room explaining that he wants to create a special orchestra with students hand-picked by himself. He posts a list for the orchestra later that includes Mine and Masumi, much to the delight of both of them.

As he listens to a recording of Stresemann conducting Gustav Mahler‘s Symphony No. 8, Chiaki can’t believe that such a beautiful Mahler could be produced by a person like Stresemann. Nevertheless, he knows that this is an opportunity he can’t miss out on, so he has to transfer. Nodame meanwhile learns that she’s on Stresemann’s special orchestra list as the mascot girl. Stresemann apologizes for not telling her who he really was, but their conversation is interrupted by the sound of Tanioka talking with Chiaki about his transfer. Nodame refuses to let him transfer, but that’s a moot point because Stresemann rips up Chiaki’s written request and rejects it. Chiaki thinks that Stresemann hates him because of what happened last night, but as it turns out, it goes deeper than that. Stresemann and Chiaki’s teacher Vieira first met 15 years ago and had both been after the same hard-to-find toy. Vieira ended up getting it because he pointed out that Stresemann had been going around sexually harassing female musicians, including Vieira’s own wife. Chiaki can’t believe that Stresemann would hold a grudge over a toy, but the Maestro sees Chiaki the same way he sees Vieira.

Stresemann gathers his special orchestra and talks about them being a family, but he actually wants them all to go on a goukon. At the restaurant, the students soon see Stresemann’s lecherous side with the way he acts towards the female musicians. Sitting off to the side, Mine raises the topic of Chiaki transferring majors with Nodame. Mine had actually hoped that Chiaki’s request would have been accepted because then Chiaki’s graduation would have taken longer. Since Mine thinks that Chiaki’s going to Europe after graduation, Nodame starts to panic because she doesn’t want Chiaki to leave so soon. She writes a new request for Chiaki on a handkerchief and gives it to Stresemann, but the famous conductor blows his nose with it and then tosses it. The next day, Nodame finds Chiaki in the library writing a notice that he’s leaving this school because he wants to go to a different university. Nodame blows her nose with it, throws it away, and then drags Chiaki to the dean’s office to discuss the change of majors. Unfortunately, the two find Stresemann there alone because the dean left to get him some cigarettes.

At the same time, the special orchestra has started their practice, but Stresemann is late and some of the students are starting to think that he’s a fake. They don’t know that Nodame is at that moment trying to get Stresemann to approve of Chiaki’s transfer. It’s not until she starts to cry that Stresemann gives in, but his one condition is that Nodame has to kiss him. Though she doesn’t want to do it, Nodame is faced with a tough decision because she also doesn’t want Chiaki to go to Europe.

Preview:

Though I wouldn’t necessarily consider Nodame Cantabile a romance-comedy, this episode does show that Chiaki’s developed some feelings for her, if nothing more than just protective ones. She is of course sought after by Milch/Stresemann, who sounded just like the lecherous old man I imagined him to be from the manga – Ogawa Shinji put in a pretty good performance. And just like the last few episodes, this had plenty of funny moments, though there was actually a lack of music save for the Mahler recording.
As I expected, they didn’t include the kotatsu story from the manga so they could go directly for Stresemann’s arrival. It’s not a big deal, but I am curious if they’re going to put that in sometime later. The spot they ended at today also makes me wonder what they’re going to do for next episode. The end of the second volume of the manga would be the best place to conclude next week, but there’s not enough material left between here and there to fill an entire episode.