Musings on MNL48, AKB48 Why We Need to Give it a Chance

To be honest, I never once expected I’d actually write a piece about MNL48, the presumed sister group of AKB48 in the Philippines. In fact, I never expected to write any AKB48 related opinion pieces at all: I support a rival group, only ever really warmed up to about 5 48-group songs, and never even bothered with the nitty-gritty details of its fandom. The one girl that I did decide to follow, announced her graduation less than a week after I finally decided to make her my first-ever AKB48 bias. Not a promising prospect in a fandom I have so long resisted.

But I would also be lying if I said that I’m not a bit excited by Team 8’s upcoming performance in Cool Japan Festival. These are members of the biggest idol group in Japan, and the prospect of seeing them perform onstage in front of me is something I – fan or not – am not going to miss. While their arrival probably won’t be picked up by local networks outside of TV5, it’s still a start, something most other major Japanese acts never even considered before last year’s Rurouni Kenshin films opened eyes about the viability of marketing Japanese pop culture in this country. The potential has always been there, but no one wanted to come and find out if it’s real.

Which brings me to MNL48, and the first question in my mind is “why?” Why, out of all the countries, did producer Akimoto Yasushi consider the Philippines as a prospect? I haven’t seen their singles or albums being sold in stores, and the core-group of local fans (this doesn’t include the “closet fans”), while very dedicated and passionate, don’t have the sufficient numbers to make us a viable business prospect. Akimoto has proven many times that he has the uncanny ability to make good marketing decisions, so I’m very puzzled about MNL48.

Then, of course, there’s a little controversy surrounding it. I’ve read an article in Japan Today which claims that MNL48 will be funded through the Cool Japan Fund Inc. However, it should be noted that the Cool Japan mall where the theater will be located, is being planned by Hallohallo Inc, and is not an initiative of Cool Japan Fund whose main contribution is to invest in its construction. We have to make a distinction between Cool Japan Fund Inc, and Hallohallo Inc’s Cool Japan Project.

Cool Japan Fund Inc is an investment fund jointly set up by the government and private sector of Japan with the purpose of promoting Japanese culture abroad. Its shareholders include such corporate entities as Dentsu Inc., Bandai Namco, and Fuji Media Holdings. AKS (the management company that handles the 48 Group members except NMB48 and several members) isn’t a shareholder, and Akimoto Yasushi’s name is nowhere on the list of the board of directors.

I don’t have information as to who pitched in the idea for MNL48 (I doubt we’ll ever find out anyway), but I’m pretty convinced, based on the information we have, that it did not come from Cool Japan Fund Inc whose shareholders would be more interested in having the mall feature their products and services. If anything else, I’d point to Hallohallo Inc who planned the mall and its features, as the one behind the idea of the theater for a potential group. Hallohallo Inc is not a shareholder of Cool Japan Fund Inc.

So unless Hallohallo Inc is a shadow company of Akimoto Yasushi or he’s a Shadow Emperor of sorts in the Japanese government, public funds will not be used to create the group. Just the mall.

This leads us back to why MNL48 is even being considered at all. Jpop isn’t exactly big here, and 9 times out of 10 people associate it with anime. I mean, we don’t even need racists and naysayers from other countries to put us down, our own countrymen would love to do that themselves. As a potential audience, we’re not one of the best: many of us rip Japanese music off You Tube or file-sharing sites and call it “support”. Not a good sign for a culture that thrives on the sale of official merchandise. And last, but not the least, we don’t seem to have the patience to see things grow. We want things to be big from day one and anything less is considered a “flop”. I can never forget that guy in the SM Cinema Facebook page that declared the first Rurouni Kenshin movie a flop after just two days. It turns out that he spoke too soon: the movie was a box-office hit during the weekend, and eventually became the top Japanese movie ever in the Philippine Box Office (until the sequels came along, of course). Good results take time, especially on things that are not familiar to us.

In my opinion, the reason why MNL48 is being considered is because of the theater. Why? Because that’s how AKB48 started. AKB48’s history has always been tied to their theater, and even now that its members are in demand, they still have regular performances in it. Even if MNL48 would not be able to hit it off domestically for about a year or so (maybe even longer), as long as they have a theater they can perform in, and core fans who’ll support them, they’ll be fine.

Many people see the 48 Groups in light of what they are for the past six to seven years, that is, of a well-oiled machine that seems invincible. But all the 48 Groups (JKT and SNH included) have theaters that serve as their home, where fans can come and see their idols perform live. It is this accessibility that can potentially attract Filipinos to MNL48.

Come to think of it, AKB48 has little to no presence in the country, but being the official group of Japan’s biggest idol empire should amount to something, and the live performances can draw people, even the reluctant ones, into following you. Nothing beats live entertainment, even if you don’t necessarily like the personalities there. I’m not crazy about AlDub but if they’re performing onstage in an event where I happen to be in the audience, I’d probably appreciate them at least for that moment. Besides, it took me years to even consider following an AKB48 member, specifically years of AKBingo, several Mechaike (a Japanese variety show) episodes, five seasons of Majisuka Gakuen (plus some side stories), and a member who has the mental capacity to know the Japanese constitution by heart (and she’s leaving, damn it). Would the process have been faster had I been to the theater and seen the girls for myself? The answer is maybe, and in my experience with J-idols, a maybe is more than likely to become a yes.

My final point for discussion is regards to the viability of the Japanese idol culture itself in the Philippines. I find that the answer to that question is a bit more complicated than I expected. Filipinos are indeed more “celebrity-centric” than “artist-centric” but we also have a double-standard when it comes to these personalities. It is all too easy for people to label J-pop as “pa-cute” (cutesy) when the best-selling songs in the Philippines are novelty songs or songs that aren’t really any better.

Also, as I mentioned earlier the idol industry lives on official merchandise. What made AKB48 a billion-yen enterprise isn’t just because of their songs: they took advantage of the selling power of idol-related events and merchandise. Idol wota (the term used to refer to idol fans) love to buy merchandise because it is a direct form of supporting them. Most of our countrymen don’t think that way. For example, those who buy bootleg Gunpla (Gundam model kits made by Bandai) furiously insist they are Gunpla enthusiasts despite buying something that actually hurts their self-proclaimed hobby. The same can be true of local J-pop (and even K-pop) fans: many of them haven’t even bought a single official merchandise or CD, but they call their ripping off MP3 from the internet as “support” (it isn’t).

There are numerous arguments for and against MNL48, but perhaps the most important thing that people fail to notice is the number of presumptions made on something that hasn’t gotten past the conceptual stage yet. We only know that a theater is being made in a mall that has the inconspicuous name of “Cool Japan” and construction hasn’t even started. Yet many people are ready to give judgement on a concept that we barely know, a process that hasn’t even begun, and are ready to write off a legitimate attempt at something because it seems to defy logic (not to mention some fans don’t want another international sister group). None of this makes sense to us because we’re not the ones making the business decisions nor have we access to any data they may have based those decisions from. At the end of the day, it won’t really matter. I’ll be enjoying Team 8’s performance this weekend and see what goes from there.