As a celebration countdown to Atobe Keigo's birthday on 4 Oct, you will be seeing a series of posts over the next few days related to this charismatic and egoistic bucchou from Hyotei Gakuen. To start the ball rolling, here's an overdue review of Atobe Keigo's single, "Charm Point wa Nakibokuro". Given the fact that the size of the LP jacket is simply too big to fit into the scanner, I used my handphone's camera to capture the images so I apologise for the low resolution of the shots since I did some editing to prevent the likelihood of taking ages for the pictures to load.
First of all, the front cover shows Atobe in a suit with a hat and doing the thumbs-up sign. In this type of setting, it's quite easy to guess the style of the song in this single i.e. retro-disco. Frankly speaking, I think the design of the cover is rather appealing but Atobe's smile seems kind of unnatural to me though.
True to Atobe's image of a gorgeous guy, the back cover is decorated with roses while his name is splashed across diagonally. With regards to this, I simply find it quite amusing that IndexMusic will go to that extent to satisfy the fangirls. Considering the fact that Atobe is still a junior high student in the manga, I think many would get the impression that this CD is from an anime character who is more than 20 years old rather than a 15-year-old. I don't mean to say that Atobe looks more mature than his age but then some things need to be toned down or else it deviates too much from the original setting and causes some disturbance to those who may not like to see this.
Here's the lyrics sheet for this single. Given its size, it's not feasible for me to scan it but I'll provide the romaji version and if possible, the translated version if time permits. For the moment, all I can say is that this is a rather cheeky song and the lyrics will make you laugh as long as you understand what is said and are familiar with some of the character traits of Atobe. As the title of the single suggests, the song has much to do with Atobe's nakibokuro i.e. the mole below his right eye so you may do some guessing about the content along this line. In addition, the melody of the song makes it quite catchy and easy to remember so I believe you should have a deep impression of at least the chorus section even with just one listening.
Last but not least, there's the picture of the CD itself. To be honest, I felt that the selling point of this single has much to do with the packaging rather than the CD or even the song itself. As such, it was a little disappointing to see such an extravagant package and yet the CD is simply pasted on a white sheet without more attention paid to the casing of the most essential item in this product. Nevertheless, I'm not regretting the decision to buy this CD and it's probably best that you try out the song for yourself to pass your own judgement. Of course, for those who are big fans of Atobe like me, I guess the aesthetics will be enough to send you hitting the purchase button online. ^__^
Today is the last day of 2006 and it's been more than 2 years since I started this blog. Come to think of it, I am amazed personally at how long this has been kept going although I must admit that I have very little time to post updates recently due to my busy work schedule. Hopefully, I will be able to do more for this space dedicated to Tenipuri in 2007! 
