Under the cold light of a snowy mountain, they gather not as rookies on the rise, but as athletes once crowned and summoned back for another climb. Loaded with backpacks, they stumble uphill to a finish line that marks the first of a series of competitions promising ¥30 million to the last one standing. It is Final Draft, Netflix Japan’s answer to the survival-competition craze, and its conceit is equally blunt and compelling. What becomes of former champions when the games they hitherto excelled in have relegated them to the dustbins of history?
On paper, the format is brazenly familiar.
Final Draft borrows liberally from Physical: 100 and trades in the same mix of spectacle and strain. The difference lies in its cast. Twenty-five ex-athletes — ranging from Olympians to baseball stars to street workout specialists — are thrown into contests that test not only stamina but identity. Each stage is as much about how contestants wear their past as it is about who gets to meet with success in the immediate term. On tap are such events as a sit-up marathon that tilts into the absurd, a tug-of-war crawl that reduces pride to inches, and chase-tag set-tos that punish hesitation.
Final Draft works because it acknowledges that muscle alone cannot carry it. The competitors, stripped of the aura of youth, engage in stakes that redefine victory. The likes of an Olympic gold medalist juggling motherhood, a former baseball “superhuman” trying to justify the title, and niche athletes eager to be seen in a wider light endure the physical strain. In the process, they expose their fragile mental states. Viewers tune in for collisions of strength, but stay for glimpses of vulnerability.
That said, Final Draft wobbles under its own ambition. Some challenges feel overwrought or uneven, marred by technical glitches and questionable eliminations. The mountain climb that opens the series, designed for drama, plays flatter than intended. At times, the polish betrays the grit; edits push mood over momentum, and the pacing drags where tension should rise. And while the missteps don’t ruin the experience, they highlight the difficulty of balancing spectacle with sincerity. The show wants to parade unforgiving contests and portraits of candor in equal measure, but, in straddling the line, it sometimes loses its footing.
Still, the final impression is hard to shake. When Yoshio Itoi, the ex-baseball standout, literally claws his way to the end and pledges his winnings to support wheelchair athletes, the denouement feels earned. The series may stumble in its execution, but it sticks the landing all the same. Glory fades, the body declines, and yet the drive to compete — to matter again — remains. In highlighting athletes caught between what was and what might still be, Final Draft reminds us that the hardest battles are fought not for trophies, but for relevance.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
