Heartbreaking. That is the word I will use to describe last Saturday’s elimination of another five candidates for MNL48. Heartbreaking because the girls do have good potential, and because two of those eliminated were part of my personal “magic five”.
Uriko, Cath, Micah, Alyn and Kimberly were all eliminated bringing down the total number candidates to 65. I’ve been pretty open about my support for both Uriko and Micah. I remember when Uriko sent a friend request on Facebook. I don’t normally add people I don’t personally know, so it took me a while to look into her profile and find out who she is. Uriko is your typical fan, goes to cosplay, talks like the rest of the really hard-core wotas. But among the other wota-candidates, I saw potential in her and believed she’d turn out to be special.
Micah is an officemate’s sister, and I’d probably won’t even know her if her sister didn’t campaign for her. Micah’s a walking meme, a clumsy, adorable meme, that I believed deserved my vote. Whenever you see a young girl who’s even had a catch-phrase ready (one that didn’t make me cringe), and who seems to like being on camera, you’re going to fall in love with her. Like Uriko, she’s also into the Japanese pop-culture.
I voted for those two not because they are wotas or “weaboos” as they put it (girls, the word weaboo is an insult, don’t use it with pride), but because I really think an idol group such as MNL48 deserves personalities like them. Sadly, I am not a judge, and my opinion does not have any weight on the deliberations and so they had to go.
It was difficult to move on, and I shed tears at their elimination, old as I am and well acquainted with auditions. But when you make emotional investments into something, shedding tears is a possibility we all have to accept. I don’t blame anyone, least of all their supporters who did put in the time and effort to promote the two. I’m not going to blame the management or ABS-CBN for the format of they chose for the auditions. There’s no point: eliminating candidates is an integral part of auditions, and even the best ones do get eliminated.
My only hope is that they don’t give up. They are both young, with several years left, and they should definitely try again. Some of the great AKB48 members had to try several times before they got in. Persevere, and you may eventually reap your reward.
This week, the candidates showcased both their singing and dancing to the tune of Yeng Constantino’s “Time In” with Lei, Uriko, Alice, Aria, Sheki, Shaina, Nice, Eunice, Shaira, Cath, Tin, Micah, Abby, Kimberly, Ash, Sayaka, Alyn, Trixie, Jewel, and Gabb performing live on It’s Showtime stage. It’s difficult to both sing and dance, moreso if the you are not exactly trained performers. As usual, Eunice’s prior training, and Alice’s past experience helped them a lot. The others were a mixed bag, but Ashley, my top candidate, did extremely well. She was even praised by John Pratts for it.
As for our Week 4’s Top 10, Eunice and Sayaka have consistently been Top 1 and Top 2 for the third consecutive weeks, while Alice maintained her rank as Top 3 for this week.
Here are the top-rankers for Week 4 according to their rank:
We are now entering March, that means we only have a little over a month left in this audition. Well, barring any “surprise” announcements of course. There are five Saturdays in March and because they’re still looking for 48 girls, it means that there will be at least one day when they won’t eliminate, or the number of eliminated will be less than five. You can almost feel that something might happen. Something we won’t expect. In any case, the candidates desperately need to get their votes. There are a lot of gems in the lower ranks guys. Take a look and make your choice.