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(3.71/5)Nodame has been one of my favorite series ever since I was a music student myself many, many years ago, so this is a very positive-biased review. Still, I'll try to say a few things that might be helpful for a potential first-time reader.
Summary A slightly unconventional boy-meets-girl romantic comedy set in a music college in Japan. While the story is centered around the two main characters' budding relationship, it's less about romance (which is very, very slow-burn) and more about an increasingly colorful cast of characters' journeys as student musicians and future professionals in the classical music world.
I have the physical bilingual version of volume 1, which corresponds with episodes 1-3 of the anime and episode 1 of the live action drama.
(As a side note, if you plan on sticking with this series I would highly recommend watching either the anime or drama version because music performance is absolutely crucial to the story. Scenes from this volume like Nodame's apartment reveal, Mine's version of the Beethoven sonata, and Masumi's attempt to win over Chiaki have a lot more impact when you can see and hear the music being performed!)
What I like Honestly, in real life I would not want to be friends with either of the main characters (one being an arrogant ore-sama-type elite and the other being an absolute slob who sings fart songs during private lessons) but! it really is fun watching their relationships as well as their own talents and ambitions unfold.
Language Learning The dialogue is not very difficult--almost entirely casual speech among students. There's quite a bit more katakana than the usual real world school-based manga because of musical instruments, musical terms derived from Italian, and composer names.
What I don't like The bilingual edition has the English translation inside the speech bubbles and the original Japanese in the margins. As a result, the Japanese font ends up being pretty tiny. Plus when the text placement is in the inside margin of the page, which happens fairly often in this book, you have to more or less press the book open with force (as in, put a permanent crease in the spine) just to read that one line.
Give it a shot if you like classical music or would enjoy a slice-of-life-styled story with a cast of (often wacky but fun) college students. And avoid the bilingual version!
