TBS Winter 2025 drama "Mikami-sensei" held an event on 15 February 2025 for 40 senior high school students where the producer Iida Kazutaka, director Miyazaki Yohei and cast members Toyoda Yuudai and Yamashita Kouki appeared. During the event, they shared behind-the-scenes trivia with the audience including:
- The theme song "Puppets Can't Control You" by ONE OK ROCK was kept as top secret from most of the cast and staff members until it was finally revealed in the ending credits of Ep 1's broadcast.
- According to Iida, a hint was actually dropped to everyone when they started filming the classroom scenes in December.
- A sacoche bag which is the size of their script, was handed out to everyone at that time. On it was an English phrase which is taken from the lyrics of the song.
- During a briefing with cast members, Iida mentioned that this drama was conceptualised after he heard the song "We are" from ONE OK ROCK.
- This led to Okudaira Daiken who plays Kanzaki Takuto, to guess correctly then that the English words on the bag should be song lyrics.
- Iida revealed the roots of how this drama came about. He used to aspire to become a teacher after he saw the 5th season of "3 nen B gumi Kinpachi" sensei in the final year of his senior high school. However, he failed his university entrance exams and repeated a year before he finally entered Waseda University's School of Education. He even obtained the English teaching license for junior and senior high.
It was then when he felt that he would not be able to teach his students well if he had no prior working experience so he applied to join TBS instead of becoming a teacher. While in TBS, he kept thinking of making a drama about teachers one day and finally realised his dream through "Dragonzakura" in 2021.
Just when he wanted to do an original story about teachers and felt that there was a lot of pent-up frustration in society due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he happened to see a video of ONE OK ROCK's 2016 concert in 2020 and felt the youthful energy and brilliance through it. As such, he started to plan for a school drama which ultimately became "Mikami-sensei" 5 years later.
- Unlike many school dramas to date, "Mikami-sensei" emphasizes the need for teachers and students to think together rather than teachers telling the students "how to think". With regard to this point, there was a mutual understanding with scriptwriter Shimori Roba that they didn't want this drama to be preachy and instead reflect the need to change the perception of teachers as times have also changed. It was important to emphasize that while one may be passionate about something, conveying it in a calm manner with only the necessary words is probably the best way going forward. This was unlike past dramas which tended to show passionate teachers lecturing their students with grand words and long arguments just to get their viewpoints across.
- There is also a conscious attempt to shine the spotlight on social issues of today despite this drama being entertainment and make it easier for the general audience to understand and appreciate. This was something that may not be easily done in political or social dramas meant for the adult audience.
- All 29 student actors were chosen through an audition. Contrary to the tendency to choose only popular or well-known actors to play students in school dramas so as to attract the viewers' attention, it was extremely important for the selected student actors to be able to convey the key messages in the story. In this way, the story would be able to make a lasting impression on the audience rather than be a once-off thing.
- The positioning of the Sunday drama timeslot is that it provides entertainment which can provide viewers with the motivation and encouragement to work hard again at the start of a new week. As such, while keeping this in mind, the intention of this drama is also to encourage viewers to start thinking about issues and be kinder to the people around them. This will hopefully bring about more positive effects to the society at large.
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