Actor Tori Matsuzaka stars in the January Sunday Theatre drama "Mikami Sensei" (TBS, Sunday 9pm). This is a completely original school drama, and Shimori Roba, who will be teaming up with Matsuzaka for the first time since the movie "The Journalist" (2019), is in charge of the script for a primetime commercial TV drama. Shimori responded to an interview and talked about the cast, including Matsuzaka.
◇ There are so many characters that it was difficult to come up with names for them. Even deciding on the school name was a long and winding process.
"Mikami Sensei" is a "great reversal education revival story" in which Takashi Mikami (Matsuzaka), a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology who wants to change the Japanese education system, is seconded to a private high school, Rintoku Gakuin, where he teaches at the podium himself and leads 18-year-old high school students living in the Reiwa era while standing up to authority. The drama is produced by Kazutaka Iida, who has been in charge of popular Sunday Theater dramas such as "Anti-Hero" (2024) and "VIVANT" (2023).
Shimori has been active in the theater world for a long time. This work is a school drama with many characters, but she said, "I often write ensemble dramas, and I also work as a director, so I think (the characters) are always moving. However, this time I struggled with the long timeline and the large number of people. There is also a mystery element, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what should be revealed at what stage, and whether the revealed information would be satisfactory."
With so many characters, the character names were also a challenge. "Even when we were careful, the characters would overlap, and before we knew it, the sounds of the student and adult cast names would overlap. As the characters were being decided, we even considered whether the name would fit the character, and asked if it was okay to change it because it wasn't the right name. Anyway, I wanted everyone to have a role that felt united with their name. The actors will be playing their characters for months. I thought it would be good to name the school 'Rintoku Gakuin', and it actually exists, but if we used kanji that aren't used in the show, it wouldn't sound like a school. I was so happy when it was finally decided," he revealed.
As he wrote the script, he said, "I'd never done this before with anything I wrote myself, but I put the names next to photos of the characters and wrote while looking at their faces, thinking, 'I wonder who will say this line next.'"
◇ Attending student auditions: "I wanted to know what kind of kids they were"
The 29 students were chosen through auditions, and Shimori apparently attended these auditions. Why?
"I was only there as an observer, but I participated with the feeling that if the roles were to be decided, I would like to meet them, find out what kind of people they are, what their demeanor is like. It's the same with interviews, but I really want to know everything. That's why I watch as many dramas as possible that the students (who have been chosen to appear) have appeared in. I want to see the potential of the cast. In particular, the students are unknown, so I really wanted to see them."
Regarding the selected student cast, he was impressed, saying, "I thought that we had gathered a really wonderful, amazing group of kids. There were some people who seemed surprised when they heard from the producer that a certain kid had been chosen for a certain role, but once they had their hair done and were in the classroom, they were sitting there as if they had been that kid from the beginning. Seeing that, I thought the production team had done a great job with their casting, and I felt that they had great potential to survive in the harsh world of film."
He continued, "Everyone has exceeded my expectations. There are many things that surprise me. In particular, I think that Okudaira (Okane), who plays Kanzaki, who is the central character, is doing a really good job with the role that comes with immense pressure."
The exquisite distance between Kanzaki and Saejima, a former teacher played by Takako Tokiwa, has also been a hot topic, but he says, "The idea that Kanzaki will interact with someone whose life has been changed by his article was there from the earliest plot stages, and Saejima, played by Tokiwa, came into the picture as I continued writing the script. The scenes between the two of them are scenes that I wanted to write in order to do this job, so I put my heart into them and wrote them carefully."
Looking at the scene between the two, he said, "The script is already written up to the final episode, so I thought Tokiwa-san was perfect from the moment she first appeared. Kanzaki-kun is also wonderful, so I hope you will look forward to the continuation. The relationship between the two develops little by little until the end, so I think it will be worth watching. It is one of the important core parts of this drama."
◇ In episode 6, "Mikami Sensei takes action" - His human side is also revealed
Matsuzaka's character, Okami, is a "bureaucrat teacher." Regarding his portrayal of the teaching profession, he said, "My basic philosophy is that professions should be respected, so when I write about professions, I don't want to write about professions that are not respectful, including bureaucratic work. Since it's a TV drama, there will be some exaggeration, but I'll try to be as accurate as possible. Teaching is a wonderful job, and in terms of interacting with people, I think it's a job that can't be easily combined with other jobs. I hope that the drama will convey that respect."
Regarding the character design of Mikami, he said, "Initially (producer) Iida said that a dark hero would be good, and I agreed, but I'm not really suited to the role of a dark hero, so I think of him as a new type of hero, or rather, not a hero, but a new type of teacher."
Regarding Matsuzaka, who plays the role, she said, "I've seen almost all of Matsuzaka's work and I've always followed his work, so I knew I could write anything with Matsuzaka, and I wrote it without subtracting too much. I think I can trust him more the second time around." She continued, "I was a little moved by his first words when we met. He was perfect from the first read-through. I watched the filming once, and it was perfect then too, and when I saw the broadcast it was even more perfect. I think it's really amazing. In an interview Matsuzaka said, 'The Emperor is a man of love,' and I was incredibly happy and confident that he was able to read what I wanted to convey most from that cool, outspoken script."
One might think that Sugihara, the character Matsuzaka played in "The Journalist," would have an image similar to that of the government in the sense of being a "bureaucrat," but he revealed, "I wrote it thinking of him as a completely different person, and I wasn't really conscious of it at all, but Sugihara ends up being the one who is crushed by the system, so I wanted to write in a way that wouldn't happen this time. I felt a bit bitter about the fact that Sugihara's courageous actions ended up reaching nowhere, so I had this feeling that this time..."
Finally, looking ahead to episodes 6 and beyond, he said, "In episode 6, we see the feeling that ' Mikami Sensei takes action,' and he will become a little more human. From episode 6 onwards, I think we will see a great deal of changes in the adult cast and what they are carrying inside. And of course the students as well. Everyone is giving such amazing performances that take future developments into account, and it sometimes brings me to tears watching them. In particular, episode 6 is the part where both the production team and I were excited about Mikami's actions even at the scriptwriting stage. I am really looking forward to seeing how Matsuzaka will play this part, and I hope the viewers will look forward to it too."
