Nodame Cantabile's Grand Finale In 3rd Season

Looks like the Nodame Cantabile anime franchise is going down up in a blaze of glory. Despite the fact that the first two seasons have scored mad ratings on Japanese television (during Fuji TV's popular late-night Noitamina timeslot), the series will not be "milked" for countless seasons and fade into obscurity. Instead, the upcoming third season will mark its grand finale, they say, and it will be aptly titled Nodame Cantabile: Finale.



The series' melomaniac couple will stay in Paris, once more, for their last season. But instead of delighting fans with their joys and mishaps in autumn 2009, as originally planned, they will only do so starting from January 2010, it was announced.

Not to worry, though. Even with the delay of Nodame Cantabile's 3rd season, an interlude OVA is being released next month, on August 10, bundled with the 22nd volume of Tomoko Ninomiya's original manga.

Speaking of which, there was some bad news for the manga's followers last month. Ninomiya was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with acute appendicitis, forcing her to take yet another break - following her pregnancy last year and other health issues. So until further notice, the Nodame Cantabile manga is again on hold. And the same goes for the recently announced Noda-Can BS (Nodame Cantabile Backstage) manga mini-series, I guess.

As for the 2 live-action Nodame Cantabile movies that were announced last winter, they are still set to premiere in January 2010 and spring 2010, repsectively. Their story will also be set in Paris, continuing the 2006 live-action TV drama series and this year's TV special, "Nodame Cantabile in Europe". And once again, the lead characters Chiaki and Nodame will be played by Hiroshi Tamaki and the oh-so-cute Juri Ueno.