Last One Standing (Japanese title: トークサバイバー！～トークが面白いと生き残れるドラマ～, Talk Survivor! Survive The Drama with Funny Stories) is a Japanese comedy-mystery Reality Show, starring Comedy Duo Chidori (Daigo and Nobu) and featuring appearances by both well-known and up-and-coming Japanese comedians. Its started airing on Netflix in 2022.
Daigo is a Japanese Delinquent who goes to NF High School, where a precious painting has just been stolen from the principal's office. It's soon revealed that the theft is just a prelude to a more sinister plot, and the cast have to give all they've got to tell funny stories whenever a crisis brews, or they'll be the one kicked off the plot and the show.
Meanwhile, Nobu is the narrator, accompanied by a fashion model each episode (Karen Takizawa, Shiori Sato, or Reina Triendl), constantly lampshading everything that's happening to make it abundantly clear that this is, after all, a comedy show.
Compare Murderville, another 2022 Netflix crime drama/unscripted comedy hybrid.
If these tropes don't land, they're off the show:
- Big Bad: The crimes seem to be orchestrated by a mysterious figure named Bahamut.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The main feature of the show is the cast would drop character and tell stories in real world context during the comedy segments.
- Corpsing: In-universe, although only the contestants are supposed to drop character in the comedy segments, the supporting cast struggle to keep a straight face listening to their stories.
- Fauxreigner: Toshiaki Kasuga portrays an American CIA agent, but reverts to his normal self in the comedy segments.
- Framing Device: The crime drama is one for the Reality Show segments, which would decide what happens in the next part of the drama.
- Fun with Acronyms: The school is called NF High School. It's short for No Future, referencing the "Groundhog Day" Loop plot.
- Insane Troll Logic: In the final episode, Daigo figures out Bahamut's identity by writing the Japanese characters (バハムート) downwards and stylized, forming a caricature of Nobu.
- Market-Based Title: In Japan, the show is called Talk Survivor!
- Mood Whiplash: However tense the main story has turned out, when the show transitions into comedy mode, the cast would drop character and tell funny stories like nothing is happening. The editing also becomes like typical Japanese talk shows, with colorful oversized subtitles and inset pictures of the people being discussed. And it happens at least twice per episode.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Funny stories can solve anything, from exposing a thief, de-escalating a hostage situation, to defusing a bomb.
- My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: When Daigo gets stabbed in the stomach, this is what cues him on the true nature of the situation they're in.
- Self-Deprecation: The funny stories are almost always the comedians' humiliating past incidents.
- Chidori is famous in Japan but not internationally, and the duo express their amazement that their show would be featured alongside international hits like Stranger Things and The Naked Director.
- The Smurfette Principle: Among the student comedians, only Minami Minegishi is a woman (and not primarily a comedian, but a tarento and former Idol Singer). And she dies in episode 2.
- Too Much Information: Many of the anecdotes involve sharing very private information.
- Tsukaji confesses that he often uses complimentary signed copies of photobooks and swimsuit DVDs he received from actresses and models as masturbation aid, earning him looks of disgust from Minami Minegishi and Hikaru Takahashi (both of whom have released such works).
- Kasuga reveals that his infant daughter's favorite cushion is also his favorite place to watch porn.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: Daigo is actually a cop that has infiltrated the school for several time loops.
- Voted Off the Island: Those who lost the Reality Show segments would be eliminated in the drama plot, such as by being arrested or killed by the Yakuza.
- Younger Than They Look: Most of the student main characters are portrayed by forty-something comedians. Subverted as they've actually repeated high school for 20+ years and had their memories wiped after each graduation, without anybody questioning their appearances.
- Wham Episode: The final episode reveals that they're part of a Neo Sapiens race who have been put in a "Groundhog Day" Loop of their high school years in order to find the one who can access the Akashic Records which can help improve humanity. It's so full of Techno Babble that Nobu wonders whether that part was written by Hideaki Anno.
