After one week of inactivity, the MNL48 Online Update has returned with an all-new format aimed to develop and showcase the variety skills of the MNL48 members. MNLife will take the place of the Online Update and is comprised of two segments: MNLife and MNLaugh. Both segments will stream alternately every 6PM from Mondays to Saturdays on both the official MNL48 Facebook and MNL48 You Tube channels.
MNLife is a segment that talks about the everyday life of the MNL48 members in the Mansion. The first episode featured the Kami 7 with Hashtag Luke and MNL48 Lei as the hosts. You can feel the nerve-filled episode as even Luke – for all his experience hosting shows – flubbed a few words. Lei has shown herself to have good potential in hosting. I feel the nervousness getting in the way of a really great time hosting, but that’s to be expected on a first show which – incidentally – is also streamed live.
The highlights of the first episode includes Abby’s sleep-talking, Zen’s being messy, Sela being especially afraid of ghosts, Trixie finding it hard to stop laughing (between Lei’s antics as a host and Zen’s reaction to being outed as messy, I don’t blame her), and Abby occupying more than her share of the closet.
My comments on this first episode is that the show lightened up when the girls started outing each other’s habits. I’m a little underwhelmed by Alice and Sheki’s reactions, though, but I’m sure they’ll bounce back next time.
MNLaugh on the other hand is MNL48’s variety show where the girls do games for the entertainment of the audience. The first episode featured Team M-II.
For this first episode, Team M-II played “pass the balloon” which was ultimately won by Faith. The idea is to answer trivia questions to be able to pass a pump filling a balloon with air until it pops. The timer coupled with the fear of the balloon popping on their faces meant that the girls’ minds pretty much blanked leading to much hilarity.
Here are the first two episodes.
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This week, we’ll talk about the duties and responsibilities of the Team Captain. Unlike the other 48 Groups, MNL48 actually revealed to the public the guidelines of being a Team Captain. There were always rumors of what a Team Captain or Leader actually means in AKB48, and there had been much talk about the scope and limitations of a Captain’s role and responsibility. But AKS has not really released a full information guide regarding this hallowed position in the 48 Group hierarchy so most of what we know (or think we know) about the position are all technically hearsays or at best, presumptions based on what we read either from the girls themselves or from staff.
As we all know by now, the management has decided to take in 48 members plus trainees, so given the large group, I would assume that they would at least want the girls to self-regulate, instead of hiring twice the number of staff. Being professional idols means that they are subjected to a number of rules as well as expectations and it is of extreme importance that the Team Captains should be someone the girls themselves respect, instead of someone the management decided to impose. Hence, the election during the first week of May.
The duties and responsibilities are, at first glance, unremarkable and typical of what you’d expect to see in a Class President or a Student Council. But if you take into consideration its setting and context, you’d see that it actually has some pretty ingenious systems in place not only to keep the girls in line, but also provide them with a Point-of-Contact whenever the girls have something they want to bring to the management.
Duties and responsibilities of the Team Captain
I. Must read and understand all management rules and policies and disseminate, discuss,and ensure that all team members agree and understand all management rules and policies.
– Disseminating information is a standard responsibility of any Leader. The kicker is that the Team Captain must not only inform her team members, but also make them understand and agree…two words that don’t necessarily follow the dissemination of information. But in a group as large as this, working in an industry that has so many things happening, it is important that any policies are understood and agreed upon by any member.
II. Must always be the first one to arrive in rehearsals and events, and ensure that everybody is accounted for and present. Should any member be absent or tardy, she should inform the management.
– Again, another standard Student Leader responsibility. Given that all of them are living (or will be living) in the Mansion, this seemed like a given. However, just think about the members: almost all of whom are teenagers and a huge chunk of them have never been in this line of business before. Being a professional is more than just signing a contract and getting paid for your services and MNL48 – a beginner in the industry – must prove itself by following the most basic test of professionalism: punctuality.
That and the fact that the Japanese have an unnatural devotion to punctuality.
III. Acts as the liaison between management and team members.
– This here is important. The members and the management won’t ever agree with each other 100% on all things. It is important that there is someone who is the de-facto go-to girl for whenever the management wants to reach to the girls and vice-versa. Despite the fact that the members are the management’s employees communication between the parties should be high priority. It is the girls who perform onstage, after all.
IV. Must provide leadership to the group especially during rehearsals and events. She must ensure that all team members are aware of details and changes in schedule (date and time), location, uniform or wardrobe.
– Here we see one very practical use of the captain position and connected with I and III. Being the person through whom the management will communicate to the members with, the captain will get extensive use when there are information that the management needs to communicate to the members that the staff hadn’t already disseminated. Ensuring that all the members are on the same page even when it comes to such details as the uniforms will be crucial.
V. Acts as the spokesperson of the group for any team members’ concern.
– Filipinos aren’t naturally predisposed to speaking up during Focus Group Discussions even if this is sometimes the only direct way for the management to hear their employee’s concerns. Having the captain act as the spokesperson for interests and concerns that the members would otherwise have kept to themselves is a huge responsibility.
VI. Speaks for and on behalf of the team if the situation calls for it, like during events, presscons and interviews.
– This is a bit unclear to me. All the members would have to individually answer questions during press-conferences. Does this mean that the Team Captain is the default spokesperson or are they to intervene only if the member being asked is buckling under the pressure?
The way I remember how interviews are made is that specific questions are given for specific members to answer. So in that style, the Team Captain speaking on behalf of her Team isn’t necessary unless to reinforce another member’s answer. This duty seems to be more useful in candid, unscripted moments.
VII. Must be the best friend of each team member. She must lift the members’ spirits up and she must be the embodiment of positivity and energy.
– In other words, the team’s “foundation”. Being the “best friend” to fifteen other individuals with various personalities is a tall order. But I think this basically means the captain must at least be in good terms with her team enough for them to be lifted up by her energy and positivity. The girls will eventually come to a point where they will feel burnt out by the physical and emotional demands of their job and the Captain must make sure she listens to, empathizes, and lifts the team morale.
VIII. Must always be the wise, sensible, and responsible member. She must always be a combination of being fair and understanding, and at the same time, disciplined and tough.
– Being wise, sensible, and responsible are the ideal traits of a Team Captain. I’d wager that our Captains will not going to be all three all the time. They’re also members, with their own hopes and expectations. They are part of the group, but at times must be above and beyond it. It’s hard to be fair and understanding as well as disciplined and tough if you yourself are harboring doubts about some of aspects of your job. It’s also going to be hard to discipline teenagers.
That’s it for the captain’s duties. Next week, I’ll comment on the Group Captain’s duties and obligations.
A sad post-script:
It seems that Kenkyuusei Captain Arol has left the program. Before her, several kenkyuusei left as well. A sad turn of events that began with the surprise Challengers announcement and the backlash from the fans that prompted the management to modify their plans.
