In thinking about my last post, I realized that I missed some points about the live action version of Nodame Cantabile. That would be Streseman, casting Japanese actors to play white people, and Mine's father.
The way that Streseman was done was most curious to me. His personality was not as implied in the manga or portrayed in the amine and nothing like I had imagined. They decided to make Streseman an over-the-top pervert who wears pimp clothes. His manner of speech and cadence came off as "greasy salesman" or a stereo-typical pimp (regardless of culture). He also had a streak of jeasously aimed towards Chiaki that I hadn't taken seriously when reading the manga. I had always taken his actions towards Chiaki and the wannabe-Chiaki conducting student as professor's pleasure (as in the way professors treat their grad students as dogs and work them to death because they can) and that for the most part, Streseman was teasing Chiaki. This version of Streseman is entirely childlike and devoid of any of the nuturing part of Streseman's personality presented in the manga and the anime version of the story. Still this Streseman is lovable.
As for Streseman being played by a very tanned Japanese man in a rediculous looking long white wig and Elise being played by a Japanese woman wearing blue contacts, I found it completely hilarious! Why not, I guess, since the Japanese consider their language too complicated for anyone other than Japanese people to learn. Nevermind the fact that a foriegners would speak busted Japanese just as native Japanese speakers speak busted English.
I can't believe I forgot to comment on my favorite minor character in the story, Mine's dad. I don't know who the actor was, but he played the character perfectly in every aspect and made me wish that Uraken restaurant really existed and that it was somewhere next to my house so I could be a regular and immerse myself in the atmosphere once or twice a week.
