Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

The tragedy of the past is over and done with, but the seeds have been sown for the stories yet to be. Out of the remaining embers that was the tragic romance of Himura Yuu and Amamiya Yuuko, the connections that will lead to a new generation of romance and heartache have been formed, and under the watchful eyes of the star-crossed lovers, these new stories have each achieved the resolution that the ill-fated lovers never did. Yet, though some of the stories may have run their course, there remains one left which has yet to reach its conclusion, and as the true melody sings of the romances that have reached their fulfilment, it sings too for the one left which has yet to do so.

As the relatively carefree days of being a student recede further into the past, Tomoya begins to look forward to the future, as the important decisions of his life looms ever larger. But beyond school life does not mean beyond a life of learning, for mentors can be found even when one has become a part of the larger working society out there, and it is these mentors who can, from experience, show one the way not to make the mistakes they made, even if it only means that ultimately they can only help one learn to make one’s own mistakes, instead of repeating theirs. But from the mistakes made by one and one’s own mentors, experience and learning contributes to growth, and helps one find their own true path. And that is the history of the great family known as humankind, of which we are seeing only such a small part of, as intimate and real as it might be.

Despite the glaring (if few) animation inconsistencies that I can’t help but pick on, I am actually as pleased with this episode as I was annoyed with Kon Chiaki’s treatment of Episode 2, for this is the episode which not only stayed mostly faithful to the manga material for the most part, it is also the first Nodame ~Paris~ episode which actually seemed to recapture some of the feeling of the first Nodame series which was missing in J.C. Staff’s take on the Paris Chapter until now. Is it simply because the Saint-Malo chapters are simply easier to adapt, or has the butcher job that Kon Chiaki took to the earlier episodes been for the sake of fitting the later episodes in better? Whatever the case, this has definitely been the most enjoyable Nodame ~Paris~ episode to date, and one can only hope this standard can be kept up for the entirety of the Saint-Malo arc, the first within the Paris arc which brings the spotlight back on Nodame.