Shinji Mikami is born in Japan. Specific details about his birthplace within Japan are scarce in readily available public sources.

Mikami attends Doshisha University, where he studies product design and architecture. Although his focus wasn't directly on programming or game design, this likely exposed him to spatial reasoning, aesthetics, and problem-solving, which are valuable in game development.

It is likely that Mikami, like many of his generation, was influenced by early arcade games and home consoles. The specific titles that captured his imagination remain largely undocumented, but the burgeoning video game industry of the 1980s would undoubtedly have been a key factor in his career choice.