Moé Moé Rabu

• Having to face kissing Stresemann, Nodame ends up punching him instead and knocking him out. Having spotted the urtext and remembers that today is the rehearsal for his orchestra.
• With the students, they realise that the orchestra is composed of students who are unskilled. Growing restless, some of the students start to leave, until Nodame arrives with Chiaki. Nodame announces that Chiaki will be conducting, with the piece being Beethoven’s Symphony No.7. Chiaki had just recently finished studying Vieira’s version and decides to give it a go.

• Mine starts to gather everyone to practice under him, but Chiaki is shocked to find out that Mine is the concert master.
• Meanwhile, Nodame is dragging Stresemann hoping to let him see Chiaki conducting.
• As the Chiaki is conducting through the first practice, he is shocked to realise that Stresemann has gathered the most unskilled musicians in the school. After they finished, Mine suggests they try something grander, but Chiaki can’t believe Mine wants to do that when he did so many mistakes. But it wasn’t just Mine. Chiaki proceeds to point out the mistakes of other orchestra members.
• In the audience seats, Nodame comments on how Chiaki has good ears. Looking over at Stresemann, who is now awake, is watching Chiaki too intently to reply. The girls in the orchestra find Chiaki impressive as well, but this stirs resentment within the guys. So two of the guys decide to play the wrong parts so they can make Chiaki look bad after practice as they think he won’t notice. However Chiaki notices immediately.
• Chiaki continues to yell at the orchestra members when they screw up, but the sound just gets worse and worse. Having reached his limits, Chiaki ends up dropping the conducting baton as no one is listening to him. However Stresemann appears on the stage and relieves Chiaki of conductor.
• Stresemann says that he is disqualified as he made a girl cry and proceeds to lead the orchestra himself. Before going through the piece one more time, Stresemann gives kind words of advice to the orchestra members that Chiaki yelled at. With Chiaki watching on, he feels that the orchestra is still bad; they come to life because of Stresemann. He also sees that Stresemann appreciates each sound and each musician, and that’s what a real maestro is.
• Later on, Chiaki once again tries to transfer, but Stresemann again just tears up his application. Stresemann thinks that Chiaki should continue with the piano and spend the rest of his time with the Maestro. He feels this way since Chiaki is Vieira’s student. So with that, Stresemann wants to take Chiaki with him to Shibuya as he thinks that if Chiaki is around, he’ll attract more women. Nodame then bursts into the room telling Stresemann she’ll never hand over Chiaki and ends up knocking him out again. At that, Chiaki thinks on how that rehearsal has changed his life.

Preview:

Impressions

This episode seemed rather short compared to the others, but I supposethat is the case since we’re focusing on the music. Although I would not be surprised if we see more episodes like this in the future as most orchestra pieces are around 5-8 minutes. Though with this episode being music oriented, I could hear all the mistakes quite well, probably to the fact that I heard Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 quite often in the live action drama. But it makes me wonder if they producers really got an entire orchestra to play the musical pieces.

There is one thing about the anime that is a let down, and that is the animation of Chiaki’s and Stresemann’s conducting. Being able to see the movement of the conductor shows passion and emphasis on the music that is playing. But this being the first orchestra practive we’ve seen I can’t complain. But I do hope that will change when they get to the other performances.

Well Chiaki learnt a very important lesson in seeing Stresemann conducting. Seeing how he doesn’t yell at the musicians and gives advice in a positive manner goes to show that Chiaki has a lot to learn about relating to people and that they are human. Nodame punching out Stresemann was rather funny, but it does make me wonder what her decision would have been if she did have to choose.

Next week we appear to get introduced to a new character.