Notes from Julliard

Review

This story continues the events in Ranko's life as she goes to the U.S. to study at Julliard. Ranko has to manage surviving in a totally new culture. She pursues her violin work, but is haunted by one constant problem; she does not seem to be able to inject her work with passion.

She plays technically excellent, but as far as the feeling of the music goes, she's unable to get that.

It's an interesting story, although in chapters 5 and 6 seems thing to slow down a bit, and a little too much time is spent on the description of Tish's house.

Synopsis

Chapter 1

Ranko is now 21 years old and is going to spend nine months in the U.S. studying at Juilliard. She’s very uneasy about leaving everything familiar behind her, though.

When she arrives at the airport she has some difficulty in Customs and meets an obnoxious Frenchman.

She gets to the school to arrange to move into her room but there is a problem when they can’t seem to find her in the computers. The Frenchman, Jean-Pierre, bothers her while she’s waiting and finds out that is not something he should be doing.

Ranko will be living in a dormatory in a five-room suite with a group of seven other women.

Chapter 2

Ranko finds a place to practice her morning katas, a dance studio.

The main problem Ranko has playing her music seems to be not infusing it with enough emotion and passion; she is technically brilliant but lacks the emotional nature that is necessary for great music.

Ranko gets to meet one of her roommates, a black girl who wants to practice her Japanese. Her other roommates include a girl from India, one from Scotland, and a couple from the U.S., with some others not yet showing up.

She gets to meet more people, attends the opening assembly and then goes to an informal get-together where she meets more people and finds out that there has been quite a bit of talk about her going around and the expectations of her ability are very high.

Chapter 3

Ranko ends up having to team with Jean-Pierre who turns out to be an excellent piano player. Ranko still can’t overcome her blocked feelings, though, in her music.

Ranko is out with two other young women when a mugger steals the purse of one of them and Ranko gives chase, catching the mugger and soundly defeating him.

Tish, Ranko’s best friend there, notices a photo wallet and the similarity of Ryouga’s picture to that of a girl wearing the same bandanna.

Chapter 4

Tish calls her father, a psychologist, to say she thinks there is something wrong with Ranko. She tells him about Ranko's nightmares about cats; there is something about a “girl form” she doesn't understand; Ranko can pull ki swords out of her body; she goes to the beach with a panda which reads the newspaper, etc.

He tells her that it's nothing to worry about after Tish tells him Ranko is otherwise very normal and nice.

Ranko gets an offer from the police department to teach their officers martial arts. She'll get paid, and she agrees. The police will pick her up and take her back to the school; the classes will be at six in the morning. (This all comes from when Ranko caught the mugger in chapter 3.)

Ranko works on planning her wedding, but her mother wants two ceremonies; a Japanese one and a more traditional, western-type wedding. Other plans are also discussed, including the food, other clothes, etc.

The school is going to go on a concert tour for two shows to San Francisco, but the budget is tight and only two soloists will be joining them.

It turns out Ranko is not going to be a solist; she's only the fifth best, and only the top two get to go. She's still having problems putting emotion into her playing.

Ranko is also having some problems in her relationship with Jean-Pierre, who probably wants to be her boyfriend.

Ranko, Emi and Tish go shopping. Later, a couple of the professors talk about Ranko's playing lacking emotional depth, but another professor is coming who may be able to help her.

Ranko is invited to a Halloween party. She has her doubts until she hears that there will be food there. (She doesn't understand what Halloween is, actually.)

Ranko attends the party dressed as Shampoo. Suddenly things go very bad. A guy in a cat costume is there and Ranko sees him and freaks, ending up clutching the ceiling fifteen feet up. All this really causes Tish to start wondering what had happened to Ranko to cause her to behave this way when she sees a cat.

Chapter 5

Ranko has been giving marital arts classes to the police for a while when a guy from another precinct joins the class. He thinks he's really hot as far as martial arts goes, but gets a painful awakening from Ranko.

Things go so well she ends up getting a raise.

Akane is giving Nabiki martial arts training. She's having trouble with her boss, and this is a way to work off some of her stress.

The students board buses to go to San Francisco, while Ranko finds out she is to fill in for a pregnant violinist at a different concert.

Tish invites Ranko to her house for Thanksgiving.

Ryoga is unable to find a job back in Japan due to the economy.

There's an interesting thing when Ranko compares the lack of speed of American trains to the speed of Japanese bullet trains.

The rest of the chapter is taken up with her arrival at Tish's home and settling in activities.

Chapter 6

Ranko explains about how she was trained in the neko-ken, and how she can become a cat. Ranko explains to Tish how to bring her out of the neko-ken.

Tish's father talks to Ranko about her problem. He explains that treating Ranko with traditional psychology could actually harm her. Then there's a long section about Tish's background, how she is black, lived in Japan from the start of elementary school, and how her mother wanted to emphasis her race and became paranoid about Tish picking up too much Japanese culture and mannerisms. The mother left the family, never to be seen again.

Ranko invites Tish to come with her when she returns to Japan for New Years.

Ranko and Tish talk about Jean-Pierre, and she explains to Ranko that the guy is in love with her and that's why he teases her so much.

Akane has written Ranko a letter (in a flashback) and it says that Kasumi is going to go to medical school.

Akane and the others listen to a webcast of Ranko's concert. Ranko ends up getting a negative review in the newspaper, the reviewer saying she is technically excellent, but lacks passion.Akane gets a phone call, and it's from Tish. She says Ranko has disappeared.

(added 3/2008)