General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Thermae Romae (テルマエ・ロマエ)

Thermae Romae (テルマエ・ロマエ) is a Japanese comedy manga series by Mari Yamazaki (ヤマザキマリ) about Lucius Modestus, an ancient Roman bathhouse architect who time-travels to modern Japan and adapts its bathing culture to build innovative baths in Hadrianic Rome. The manga won the Manga Taishō in 2010 and the Short Story Award of the 14th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and it has been adapted three times: a Flash anime in 2012, a live-action film in 2012, and the anime Thermae Romae Novae in 2022.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Original manga	By Mari Yamazaki; won the Manga Taishō 2010 and the 14th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Short Story Award¹
Premise	Lucius Modestus, a bath architect of the Roman Empire under Hadrian, is repeatedly transported to modern Japanese bathhouses and applies what he sees there in Rome¹
2012 live-action film	Directed by Takeuchi Hideki, starring Hiroshi Abe and Aya Ueto; released 28 April 2012 by Toho, 108 minutes¹
Box office	¥5.98 billion, the second-highest-grossing Japanese film of 2012¹
2012 anime	Flash anime on Fuji TV's noitaminA block from 12 January 2012, produced by DLE, the first Flash anime in that slot²
Sequel manga	Zoku Thermae Romae began serialization on Shōnen Jump+ on 6 February 2024⁴
Translations	The manga has been translated in eight countries⁵

Spoilers

Story and premise

The story is set in the reign of Emperor Hadrian. Lucius Modestus, a bathhouse design engineer who clings to traditional Roman baths, loses his job when his old-fashioned designs fall out of step with the times. Visiting a public bath at a friend's suggestion, he is suddenly transported to a modern Japanese sentō (public bath). He treats the Japanese, whom he calls the "flat-faced tribe," as a lost Roman province, but he is struck by their bathing culture and carries its ideas back to Rome, where his novel bathhouses win public attention and the trust of Hadrian himself.¹^•²^•⁶

The comedy rests on the collision of two bathing civilizations. Scholars of classical reception have read the work as an unusual case: a story about ancient Rome produced and successful in Japan, where Classics is relatively unfamiliar to the general public, and one whose success has been attributed to its Japanization of Roman elements.⁷ The manga also uses its Roman setting for social observation; in the original serialization format it could depict nudity in the bathhouse and a fertility ceremony involving a giant phallus.⁸

The manga and its author

Mari Yamazaki was born in 1967 in Tokyo and moved to Italy in 1984, where she studied oil painting and art history at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts; she has been active as a manga artist since 1997 and now lives between Italy and Japan.⁴

The manga's double award in 2010, the Manga Taishō and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Short Story Award, turned it into a bestseller and drove its adaptations.¹ It has been translated in eight countries.⁵ A sequel, Zoku Thermae Romae, began on Shōnen Jump+ on 6 February 2024; it is set in AD 158, in the twentieth year of Antoninus Pius, and follows a sixty-year-old Lucius troubled by back pain whose son Marius also begins time-slipping to modern Japan.⁴

The 2012 Flash anime

Before the live-action film opened, Fuji TV aired a Flash-animated adaptation in its late-night noitaminA block from 12 January 2012, the first Flash anime in that slot. It was produced by DLE, the studio behind the Secret Society Eagle Talon series, with FROGMAN as executive director and Azuma Tani as director and series writer. FROGMAN voiced Lucius, with Hirokazu Higashi as Marcus and Akio Ōtsuka as Emperor Hadrian; the theme song "Thermae Roman" was performed by Chatmonchy.²^•⁹^•¹⁰

The 2012 live-action film

The live-action film was directed by Takeuchi Hideki, a Fuji TV drama director making his theatrical breakthrough, with a screenplay by Shogo Muto and music by Norihito Sumitomo.¹^•¹¹ Hiroshi Abe played Lucius and Aya Ueto played Manami Yamakoshi, an aspiring manga artist created for the film.¹ Producer Naoto Inaba read the manga at New Year 2010, before it became a bestseller, and it took five months to set up the project with the publisher Enterbrain; the manga's Manga Taishō win then accelerated it. Abe accepted the role within days of the offer, citing the chance to play a type he had never played and to realize a film-scale world.¹²

The film earned ¥5.98 billion at the Japanese box office, ranking second among domestic films for 2012, and Abe won the Outstanding Lead Actor Award at the 36th Japan Academy Prize in 2013, with Mitsuo Harada taking the Excellence in Art Direction award.¹ A sequel, Thermae Romae II, was scheduled for release in Golden Week 2014.¹³

Later adaptations and reception

A new anime, Thermae Romae Novae, was produced in 2022 and streamed on Netflix; it follows the same premise of Lucius traveling between Roman and modern Japanese baths.³ In the series, as in the manga, Lucius is a bathhouse architect whose encounters with Japanese bathing culture feed his Roman designs; Yamazaki has explained that in ancient Rome bathtubs were used to soak and be comforted by hot water rather than to wash the body with soap.¹⁴ The 2012 film has also drawn academic attention: Monica Cyrino reads it as both part of the epic-film tradition and a commentary on modern Japan's relationship with its imperial past, while Clare Chang argues its success came from catering to the emotional and social needs of Japanese audiences at the time of release.¹⁵^•⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Japanese anime features › Released 1999 to 2013

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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