Trivia / Nodame Cantabile

• Dyeing for Your Art: All the Japanese actors who played European characters for the live-action adaptation dyed their hair. In particular, Becky and Eiji Wentz dyed their hair orange/strawberry blonde to play the Russian Tanya and French Frank.
• Fake Nationality: A given; while the live-action adaptation did actually use a lot of genuine foreign people when necessary (especially for the specials and movies which took place in Paris), a few of the more significant foreigners were played by half or full Japanese actors.
  • Eiji Wentz is part German-American and part Japanese and played the French Frank.
  • Becky is half British and half Japanese, and played the Russian Tanya.
  • A few other minor foreign characters in Paris such as Lucas and Theo were played by full Japanese people, which hilariously made them look a bit out of place whenever they were surrounded by actual European actors and were supposed to be as native as they were.
  • The full Japanese actors Yu Yamada, Naoto Takenaka and Kichise Michiko played the Chinese Son Rui and German Stresemann and Elise respectively.
• No Export for You: Animax Asia produced a (rather good) dub for the series. It can be viewed in the U.S. via online streaming, but its only DVD release was for Region 3 (Hong Kong). Here's a sample. As of March 2016, Siren Visual has also released season 1 with a more polished dub in Australia/zone 4.
• Playing Against Type: Although she's also a pianist in real life, Nodame's English VA Kate Higgins is playing a character who isn't an Action Girl or a Tsundere, nor is she mature or capable, but a rather childish but otherwise caring young lady.
• Screwed by the Network: Animax Latin America had the first six episodes dubbed in Spanish, but then never really followed up, thanks to Network Decay. Eventually it was completed and finally started airing. Sadly, all anime that was left in the network (then known as the now-defunct Sony Spin, which was dedicated to live-action series) was moved to a space ridiculously early in the morning.
• Write Who You Know:
  • Nodame is based on a real woman with the same full name and nickname. She also had a messy room during her music college days and is a piano teacher in her hometown Fukuoka, also the character's hometown.
  • James DePriest, the musical director of the Roux-Marlet Orchestra, is based on the famous American conductor with the same name - the conductor also conducted the orchestral music for the anime and live-action OST.

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