Visuals: ✔ Talent: ✔ But what about character and personality? I dont know if this was discussed before so I really wanna know your opinion guys. Sent from my SM-J100ML using Tapatalk
My wife's opinion is that they're trying too hard to be Japanese in their MVs (not their fault) and that they look/act too arrogant/prideful in other media. That does count as character and personality, just not very positively. I've been watching some old AKBingo episodes (first 30 so far) as well as the IZ*ONE show and I've watched a couple other Kpop shows in the past and by comparison when I watch the shows on the MNL48 youtube channel, it seems like they haven't figured out how to act like an idol. I believe one episode of AKBingo had a brief focus on Mariko (?) who was tuned out and not in a good mood until the count down started and suddenly she put on her happy face. The I-SCHOOL episodes are, er, incredibly OA and not in the fun way. However, that was 3-4 years after AKB48 started. Gen 1 usually has the "real" girls* (I want to be an idol as opposed to I want notoriety) but it takes awhile for them to develop their character and figure out how to be a little extra without going overboard like they are now. Give them some time. * SKE48 - Jurina, HKT48 - Sakura, AKB48 - Megishi, Tomochin, Acchan, Takahashi
Hope so coz you know for me atleast one thing that became BNK's selling point is that their members each have their characters that will differentiate them from each other. MNL girls as of now lack that something that will pick the peoples interest. Ph already have many singing artist and such so they really need to stand out especially idol genre is very new in this country http://stage48.net/forum/index.php?posts/1536389
@JigglerCuddlerRattler I suggest you go back and copy your second post and edit it into your first post. Double posting (or more) is a big no no. Don't forget to delete your second post after you've done that Hate to say it, but that's because most Filipinas have a very limited scope of personality in general. There is a "popular" way to look, act, dress, talk, exist and if you venture too far away from that path then you're an outcast. The difference between the way girls respond to that in different countries is... well... most Filipinas eventually "fall in line" whereas American girls fight back. I'm not going to say what's right, I'm just going to say that we had Nirvana and that really really changed our country's culture of acceptance.
It's not the girls fault but they don't know how to act idol-like yet. We don't have an idol culture unlike Japan and Korea. But they are learning I guess. Plus we don't know what their real personality training is like but that part in i-school is really boring for me plus i-school itself is not centered around being funny or showing personality It seems like they've been focused so far in showing their talents which is not very idol-like for me. What who would blame them? The masses keep on bashing them with the memory of their showtime era.
I'm sure the MNL girls have interesting personalities, they just haven't had the chance to show it to the masses yet. As a BNK fan, I have to say our girls' selling point is definitely NOT their singing skills...(although they do dance great!) MNL girls are probably the best singers in the 48 groups so they definitely have that covered. Once they get media exposure, I'm sure their characters will come out. I think it's primarily a matter of marketing. I also think it's important to be reminded that the girls should not be marketed as artists or musicians, but as idols, and in the idol game, it's not musical talent that wins the day. This field is won through talent in creating a marketable 'character'. At the end of the day, popularity is the only thing that matters for an idol, not musical talent, not visuals, not performance skills (but if these things help to increase popularity then all the better). I wish all the success for MNL.
MNL48 lacks something as of right now.... The THEATRE... we can argue about this... that depends on ISchool and their mall shows.... but I think we'll all agree that they are not yet "idols you can meet everyday" because we cant... their personality, them being an idol... can be develop if they perform once or twice a week.... we can see that they compete with each other just for exposure...because they can only have an exposure in just their youtube show....even ash cried when she we was ousted, some girls look depressed just to be in one week....and even we can see the general captain of the group, the current center, and the oshima yuko kind of girl cant give their place to other in the show If there is a theatre, I think we can talk about this..but as of right now.....without theatre...its like they are not a part of 48group Edit: Just watched the episode 50 of iSchool....and turns out I got it wrong for the exposure part gor the general captain... but yeah... its just the only thing we can see the girls and their fighting for that spot... right now... they are just like idols that you can meet at social media
The problem (at least for me) is that I feel that I still don't know much about MNL48 members in order to easily remember them. For example in BNK48 (although lately I have not been following them very much) I knew from the start that Kaimook was about cooking, Pun was the cool one etc But what can I say about MNL48 members? Sheki seems funny/weird with Takamina vibes... and that's it. The ischool program is so low budget is hard to watch. They should have made something similar to the "fishbowl" live fb shows that BNK48 still do.
(Lowkey glad I am not the only one who didn't watch iSchool for the same reason lol) Ally_ is right, it's the exposure (and actually, to be frank, it's also the number of them in a limited span). Besides the theater, we still don't have the regular handshake events yet. For me, if just basing with the two fan events I attended (1st Fan meet & Mini concert), I can say most of them are loud lol Also, I don't know... regarding about the show, I think they're also lacking of... show's hosts. I mean everyone was new in what they're doing. Unlike Japan's idol shows at least they've got veteran hosts / comedians to carry the vibe of the show / pushes girls' potentials. Building a 'public character' here in this country, for entertainment, is also hard. D: Can't blame them if you know... they're showing the "safe" side more (and hide the possible Paruru inside of them lol)
This is because, in the Philippine entertainment industry, few artists/"personalities" actually shows unique individuality. Most of these "personalities" follows or imitates what personality sells well to the people, which made them showing a lot of similarities to each other. This happened for a long time that it made people think it's the norm, so it ended up that the only way to identify an individual in this industry is through their talents, comedic acts or how good looking they are and if whenever someone shows up and displays his or her own personality outside of the norm, people would quickly judge and criticize them, although for some small cases they would accept them, but most of the time just judging and criticizing. From observing posts of MNL48's youtube channel and some of the members' intagram and facebook page, I can probably give some of them a little bit of their individual traits, for example (not including the popular ones, sheki, sela and abby) Alice is very selfless, Brei has a cool character, Ella an airhead, Gabb boyish but very into fashion, Ash is smart, Mari is blunt or straight forward and so on and so forth. But for some reason their individuality isn't really apparent, that is because they also have fallen into thinking or taught about doing what is the "norm". And instead of showing their own character, they instead go with showcasing their talents more, focusing on their looks and trying to make people laugh, and these three things, without being aware of it, are the things that people in the Philippines, the viewers, automatically focus on to identify these idols' individuality. And the excess or the things about their own characters are just somethings that just to be criticized on and/or to be ignored. Well this just what i observed from watching TV.
How do they look/act "arrogant" or "prideful" exactly? Maybe it's just being confused with confidence, which is a good thing to have. See, if they acted all shy and cutesy like many Japanese idols do, as an example, they'd be called "pabebe" here which many use as an insult. In Japan, that would be praised. Here, not so much.