It was revealed on December 20th that actor Tori Matsuzaka will star in the Sunday Theatre drama "Mikami Sensei" (TBS, Sundays at 9pm) which will air in January 2025. The cast will include eight actors - Riho Yoshioka, Takaya Sakoda, Asami Usuda, Kaito Sakurai, Takako Tokiwa, Yasufumi Hayashi, and Kazuki Kitamura - who will play roles closely related to the "bureaucratic teacher" Takashi Mikami, played by Matsuzaka, and the 29 students in class 3-2 at Rintoku Gakuin, where Mikami is seconded and serves as the homeroom teacher.
"Mikami Sensei" is about Takashi Mikami (Matsuzaka), a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology who wants to change the Japanese education system, who is ordered to transfer to a private high school. In reality, it was a demotion given to an elite bureaucrat, but Mikami thinks that he can't change the system by being on the side that creates it, so he should speak up from the field and destroy the system from within, so he takes to the podium himself, guiding 18-year-old high school students living in the Reiwa era and standing up to authority... This is the story.
The story is completely original, and Shimori Roba, who will be teaming up with Matsuzaka for the first time since the movie "The Journalist," will be in charge of the script for the first time in a prime-time drama series. Kazutaka Iida, who has been in charge of popular Sunday Theater dramas in recent years such as "Anti-Hero" (2024) and "VIVANT" (2023), will serve as producer.
Yoshioka will be appearing in a Sunday Theatre production for the first time in eight years since "I'm Sorry, I Love You" (2017), and will play Fumika Koreeda, assistant teacher of Class 2, Year 3 at Rintoku Gakuin. Koreeda is a dedicated Japanese teacher who is well-trusted by her students, but she is greatly affected by the arrival of the Ministry of Education.
Sakoda will play Mizobata Kan, a third-year head teacher with a history of failing the national civil service exam. Usuda, appearing in a Sunday Theatre for the first time in 13 years since "ATARU" (2012), will play Isshiki Mayumi, a school nurse who provides emotional care to students and sometimes teachers in the infirmary. His dialogue with Matsuzaka, with whom he played a married couple in a previous work, is also worth watching. Sakurai will be appearing in his second Sunday Theatre production after "VIVANT," and will play Tsubuki Hayato, a junior colleague at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Hayashi, who has appeared in many Sunday Theatre productions such as "VIVANT" and "Anti-Hero", will play the role of Nakaoka Souma, a man who appears out of nowhere, while Oikawa will play Tsukada Yukimura, the superior officer and Director General of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau. Tokiwa, who will be appearing in a Sunday Theatre production for the first time in six years since her lead role in "Good Wife" (2019), will play Saejima Yuko, a former teacher at Rintoku Academy. Saejima left the academy due to a certain incident and is now working part-time at a convenience store.
Kitamura, who will be appearing in a Sunday drama for the first time in four years since "Heaven and Hell: Two Psychos" (2021), will play the role of Masuda Koshiro, the chairman of Rintoku Gakuin. He established Rintoku Gakuin and made it the number one preparatory school in the prefecture in terms of the number of students who enrolled in the University of Tokyo in one generation. He has a friendly side to his students and is recognized by the public as an ideal school manager.
Producer Iida's comments are as follows:
◇Comment from Producer Kazutaka Iida
Children exist under adults, and students are under adult supervision. I think that this is generally correct in terms of safety, but it seems that this sense of supervision is unusually high in Japan compared to Europe and the United States. Even though the age of adulthood has been raised to 18, this structure shows no signs of changing. It is even said that this structure is creating "adults who blame others."
In this drama, it's not just the 29 students who are influenced by Mikami Sensei. The adults who appear are also driven by Mikami Sensei's words to "think." At school, at the Ministry of Education, and in various other situations, they are touched by Mikami Sensei's words and change. When adults acknowledge their own weaknesses, think about them, and try to change, they grow just like the students. These characters force us to face the problems society faces, problems that we adults have turned a blind eye to.
It's been just under two months since filming began, and the adult cast members don't look at the students as children. They're there as actors building scenes together, as friends competing with each other. Sometimes they give advice, sometimes they lighten the mood, and the scenes with the students have a strange feeling of tension and warmth mixed together.
I hope that you will be able to empathize with and project yourself onto the weaknesses, conflicts, jealousy, obsessions and other emotions of the adults who make their students shine in "Mikami Sensei."
