Having been brought up with a musical background stories concerning music has always sorta drawn on me; and though the artwork did not strike me as my cuppa tea i picked up vol 1 off the bookshelf just to read the story.

It was then i realised i was totally hook. Chiaki's "ouji-sama" status in school was quite predictable, as with most shoujo-targetted stories, but what was really good was the way they weave classical music into the tale, and Nodame was one helluva refreshing character, an out of the world attitude, very unlike the usual plain-janes or pretty girls category.

Despite having portrayed Chiaki or Nodame as "geniuses", the story has time and time again reminded us that success was just 1% talent and 99% hardwork; noticed just how "talented" Nodame was and she was a lousy student in the beginning due to her "slack-attitude" and Chiaki was only that "fantastic" because hes really a workaholic cum perfectionist. True he had talent, but without all that effort, he couldn't had made it.

All the secondary characters seemingly had more than just a one dimensional personality as we see how in various scenarios, they seemingly reacted. It is quite colorful. ;)