During this spring new animes have been arriving to Netflixand one of the series with a very curious starting point has been ‘Thermae Romae Novae’, which adapts the manga by Mari Yamazaki. At first, this series looks like a typical “slice of life” anime, although it is set in Ancient Rome and stars a bath architect.
The first season is available in its entirety on Netflix with 11 episodes of about 35 minuteswith what can be seen in one go in about six hours for an afternoon marathon.
However, it should also be made clear that this duration is not very successful at all. Each chapter lasts the usual twenty minutes of any anime, but at the end of each episode we also have a mini-documentary of fifteen minutes focused on the manga’s author and her journey across Japan to investigate hot springs and their impact on Japanese culture.
For the glory of Rome
‘Thermae Romae Novae’ starts by showing us the childhood of Lucius, a little pusillanimous boy who is tormented by other children his age. Lucius’s family has always been in charge of building public baths in Rome and they take great pride in his work, so the young man sets out to become the best bath architect in the history of Rome.
As Lucius grows up he realizes that fulfilling his dream will not be such an easy task and that “everything is made up”. But yet, at a time when he needs inspiration for his new creation, Lucius is transported to a modern Japanese bath, where he discovers that in reality there is still much to be done in the field of baths and hot springs.
In each chapter, both the culture of Ancient Rome with its daily ins and outs and an aspect of Japanese culture are explored through what they have in common thanks to the rituals of their bathhouses.
Unfortunately this formula can get a bit repetitive at first. Lucius is presented with a problem and is magically transported to modern Japan, where he learns new techniques and gets the necessary innovations for his baths at the cost of his Roman pride. It must also be said that ‘Thermae Romae Novae’ may not be for everyone: there is no specific enemy in sight or combat, and it focuses more on the aspirations and personal development of its protagonist.
Of course, it also gives a certain tenderness to see how Lucius marvels more and more with this strange world and appreciates its culture to its inhabitants, despite not understanding their language or anything that is happening. And although at first it seems that there is no concrete plot beyond Lucius’s creative problems, little by little we are seeing a common thread that ends up uniting each chapter until it culminates at the end of the season showing us everything that the architect has achieved during his career.
In a way, ‘Thermae Romae Novae’ follows the isekai anime formula, where the protagonist is magically transferred to a fantasy world. And of course, we know that Japan is not a magical world, but for Lucius such normal things as running water in any house or water parks is something unthinkable for someone of his time.
But unlike other anime in the genre, Lucius is not trapped in this new world, but is able to go back and forth and is well aware of how little time he has in “the land of the flatfaces”, as he calls them at the beginning. of the series. Not only that, but he also breaks isekai rules a bit by showing us a quite vulnerable protagonist who does not dominate the situation at allas he is a completely normal person who ends up overwhelmed in the middle of some strange and superior technology.
Lucius is precisely the strong point of ‘Thermae Romae Novae’, which despite starting with a somewhat slow pace, manages to engage thanks to a protagonist who marvels at everything around him, with the right points of comedy even if it is by the embarrassment of others in some situations.
And yes, of course you also stay for the bug to see how he will end up implementing everything he learns on his travels to make life more comfortable for Roman citizens. It is an ingenious anime with a rather unusual approach which manages to pique curiosity even to see how Lucius manages to get out of the creative jams he gets into.