Hiroshi Tamaki is a Japanese actor, singer, and model from Nagoya, Japan. When he was still in high school, he was discovered by a talent agent while out shopping with friends. He made his debut in the drama Am I Weird? in 1998. Tamaki became better known with his appearance in the 2001 film Waterboys.

Nodame Cantabile is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tomoko Ninomiya. It was serialized by Kodansha in the josei manga magazine Kiss from July 2001 to October 2009. A short series, Nodame Cantabile: Encore Opera Chapter, was serialized in the same magazine from December 2009 to August 2010. The overall chapters were collected in 25 tankōbon volumes. In 2016, a one-shot epilogue chapter was published in the same magazine. It was licensed in North America by Del Rey Manga. The series depicts the relationship between two aspiring classical musicians, Megumi "Nodame" Noda and Shinichi Chiaki, as university students and after graduation.