• Stresemann announces that S-Orchestra’s debut will be in one month, but Chiaki doesn’t think they are good enough for that. But Stresemann also announces that Chiaki is the substitute conductor, much to Chiaki’s surprise.
• With Stresemann leaving Chiaki in charge, a contrabass musician called Sakura stumbles in late because she walked from home as she didn’t have train fare. During practice, Sakura gets stared at by Chiaki as she feels that she can’t keep up with everyone else. Afterwards, Sakura tries asking her peers for help; instead they lecture her about not practicing seriously because of her part-time job.
• As Nodame is giving Chiaki her lemon dipped in honey, he is approached by members of the orchestra asking for advice. Somehow they got a hold of his cell phone number and start calling on his way home. Arriving home, he finds Sakura and Nodame waiting to be fed.

• Having finished the pasta Chiaki made, Sakura proceeds to explain her family’s financial situation that forces her to work to pay for tuition, and thus she doesn’t have time to practice. Hearing this, Chiaki suggests she quit school since there is no point if she can’t practice. Sakura ends up running out crying after hearing what Chiaki had to say.
• The next day, Sakura didn’t turn up for practice. Nodame blames Chiaki since he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be poor. As a result, Chiaki ends up to going to Sakura’s house with Nodame. But to their surprise, Sakura’s house is enormous and they find out that the family appears to be rather wealthy.
• Meeting Sakura’s father, who serves them only water, he admits that his business isn’t doing well. Though he changes the topic to violins, once he hears that Chiaki knows how to play, he shows the two his private collection of violins made by famous makers. However, they find out that Sakura’s father can’t play the violin and is only keeping them around, so Chiaki gets angry and makes Sakura’s father realise that Sakura’s education should be more important than his collection.
• A few days later, Sakura gives her thanks to Chiaki and tells him that her father’s business and going well and that he sold the violins. Apparently there was also a cursed violin amongst the collection.
• During rehearsal, Chiaki is glad how the contrabass is turning out, but he is worried that there isn’t enough time as Stresemann is not around. He is also shocked when he sees Mine and the other violinists raise their instruments during the practice. Mine says that it makes them look like a rock orchestra and that the other violinists agreed the other day. Chiaki however yelled at them and went to find Stresemann that night.
• Chiaki locates Stresemann at a club surrounded by girls. However Stresemann is angry when he attracts the attention of the girls. As a result he returns to S-Orchestra the next day and announces that he is leaving them permanently in Chiaki’s hands so he can attend to A-Orchestra. Reason behind this is that he sees this as revenge on Chiaki taking away his harem last night.
• With Stresemann gone, S-Orchestra starts to disband, but some members wish to continue with Chiaki and so everyone ends up staying. Back home, Chiaki is feels depressed as he thinks he can’t compete with Stresemann’s A-Orchestra, but decides to go ahead with it as this is his chance.
• The next day, Chiaki finds everyone wearing S-Orchestra t-shirts. However Mine still continues on with the suggestion of a rock orchestra so Chiaki ends up yelling at him and other members of the orchestra. With only a week till the performance, the pressure is on Chiaki.

Preview:

Impressions

Sakura’s story went by pretty fast. At least 2/3 of this episode was about her which i find rather surprising as they also left out bits that were in the drama. I think it would have went a full episode if they included the part where Sakura confronts her father that she likes the contrabass more than the violin. So it seems that they are now rushing through the story.

With only a week left till the performance, the pressure is definitely on Chiaki, but I do look forward to when we see the S-Orchestra performance. But next week’s episode will probably cover the practice before the performance and the episode after would probably be the actual performance.

This week I didn’t find this episode as good as the earlier ones still. Must likely due to the rushing but it seems to lack something else. The humour is still there and it’s great, but I think it could be due to the lack of character development. Although we can’t see much more at the moment but we’ll see more depending on how far the decide to go with the series.

Also to note I found out early last week that the Nodame Cantabile manga has actually been licensed by Del-Rey. I was curious about the manga and was planning on buying the Japanese version until I saw the English version at Kinokuniya’s shelf, having a quick browse I decided not to buy it, mainly due to the fact that I didn’t like the drawing style. But I suppose if I have spare cash I might buy the first volume.