Thermae Romae Novae

Lucius Modestus, an ancient Roman architect, finds himself job-hunting due to having trouble coming up with new ideas. As his demeanor and personality become dismal, his friends try taking him to a bathhouse for him to relax. Unable to unwind in the bustling and crowded bath, Lucius dips his head in the water. Down there, he finds a secret tunnel that transports him to a modern-day Japanese bathhouse, providing him the inspiration he needed to make a new creation.

Loaded with what seems to be knowledge way ahead of his time, Lucius does his best to try and recreate his findings, usually inferior in quality due to his circumstances. However, the sheer ingenuity may be just enough to gain the attention of the citizens and regain his reputation as an architect.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Modestus, Lucius Main

Hondo, Kaede Japanese

Hadrianus ing

Isobe, Tsutomu Japanese

Regulus ing

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Pietoras, Marcus ing

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Narrator ing

Kubota, Hitoshi Japanese

Apollodoros ing

Mugihito Japanese

Titus ing

Watanabe, Akeno Japanese

Annius Verus, Marcus ing

Enoki, Junya Japanese

Modestus, Cassius ing

Souma, Kouichi Japanese

Yoshida ing

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Suda, Yasuo Producer

Tatamitani, Tetsuya Director

Tanaka, Ryou Sound Director

Momose, Yuuichirou Script

Reviews

Mar 28, 2022

issa_labshat

Recommended

Bathtub, onsen, hot springs, Thermae.
"Thermae" - a public bathing establishment of the ancient Greeks or Romans.

This series is about that.

This show was really big on the cultural appreciation of Japanese bath culture. You get to explore how sophisticated and wonderful culture. Lucius, our MC, sure did have a great time appreciating every bit.

Every episode, you get to learn some rules and quirks about Public Bathing (like drinking Fruit Milk after a bath as an unspoken rule and maintaining etiquette inside the bath). You get to see Lucius explore and get inspiration from these modern-day inventions to bring to his fellow Romans. It's beautiful.

There are no ... "hateable" characters here. There was no actual "villain" in this series. If anything, Lucius' enemy was "art block." So don't expect some action scenes here. Just smile and laugh at Lucius' fascination and wondrous appreciation as he brings this to his people.

The music is great. The suspense, thrill, excitement, and other feelings were conveyed perfectly with the help of music. The art is.. well ok? I mean, there are shots/scenes that are beautiful. But some scenes are mixed with a bit of CGI. The background characters would move so fluidly while the characters in the foreground would move with certain frames per second. You can tell easily which one is CGI and which is not. I am not really against the use of CGI in anime. It's just that it's very obvious to not point out. But that did not hinder me from enjoying the show.

Towards the end of every episode, we get to hang out with the author of Thermae Romae, Mari Yamazaki. Yamazaki-sensei to experience the wonders of Public bathing. Explore the history of the bathhouses in Japan while experiencing second-hand relaxation. It's basically Yamazaki-sensei geeking out with public baths and their historical value and stuff and an awesome sketch every end of the episode made by yours truly! (also Tsuda Kenjiro is also narrating it, and that's a huge plus)

I am a sucker when it comes to Cultural Appreciation - kind of media. I'm also a sucker for Tsuda Kenjiro. Plus, I've been studying Greco-Roman history for school, and seeing some references to Roman Gods and the founders of Rome in it made me chuckle. This show tugged my heart. I even did a standing ovation at every end of the episodes lololol.

I don't have a bathtub in our home. We don't have a local bathhouse too. This show made me more eager to go to Japan to try their bathhouses. Or any bathhouse in the world. I would be ecstatic to try an actual Thermae.
Hey Lucius? Yes please build me one. Thank you

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Mar 29, 2022

Rehaanc

Mixed Feelings

Very basic comedy with like an isekai type twist with honestly barely any link to roman civilization like you could substitute any old civilization and wouldn't change much at all. At the end of each episode we get a clip of the manga artist visiting the hotsprings that inspired her to make it. very basic story but i liked the art. there was some use of cgi it was quite out of place but its wasn't totally disorientating.


SPOILERS!!!

Basically MC gets isekaied then steals aspects of function and design from modern Japanese bathhouses, has a funny interaction with the Japanese, solves the problem of the ... episode with said stolen idea.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 9, 2022

PixelB

Not Recommended

Netflix does it again: another terrible show. And as true Netflix style, this show is animated quite horrendously, to say the least. That, however, is one of the many host of flaws that this show has.
Sure, the CGI that's ubiquitous, the lack of fluid movement, scenes of walking or monologuing dragging just a bit too long is bad, but how about adding a 3-5 minute live action sequence about baths in Japan? I don't really care about how the author of the manga is the host, or how "informative" it is. It's just lazy, and of course, more importantly, makes it so that the show ... does not need to animate that much more. Hey, better package this live-action sequence as a unique "feature," rather than cutting corners.
Okay sure, the animation and live action sequences are bad, but that's not all. The general episodic format of Lucius going into a different Japanese bath and experience its culture is also terrible, too. First of all, you're stuck in the perspective of Rome for half the show, and the Rome portion of the show is extremely lackluster. There are absolutely no characters that matter other than Lucius himself. Sure, he technically has a couple of friends that are recurring side characters, but they just are husks of a real character that just make small talk with Lucius, but really, anyone would have been fine, as long as Lucius gets some conversation in.
In fact, this show could have been good if the show actually cared about Lucius building baths. The format is that Lucius isekais to Japan and implements the bath culture into his own baths in Rome. However, none of the build or design process is actually shown, and you're just shown the of course, successful finished product. It would have been nice for the show to have Lucius struggle to get ideas approved, or trying to replicate the bath culture from Japan. But nope, you kind of just see his finished product. Other than that, the time the show is in Rome is pure boring exposition that sets up how Lucius needs to yet again, implement a new feature in a bath, serving not much purpose.
Ok, the time in Japan is probably the best part of the show, but it's still not that good. I definitely like the culture shock, and it depicts someone of Lucius's time period well, thinking that the Japanese people are slaves. However, it's still not very funny. Is it relaxing? Um, not really? you're kind of just seeing Lucius react to how different baths work. It kind of gets really old real quick, not that it was particularly good to begin with.
So yep, should have guessed that Netflix would butcher another show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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