Thermae Romae Novae

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.

It had potential, but it turned out meh.

Thermae Romae Novae is an anime about a Roman architect of bathhouses that gets teleported to modern Japanese bathhouses. He has huge art block and has problems with making something that other Romans would appreciate, after he visits the Japanese bathhouse he has a lot of ideas to improve his project.

I think it could be good anime, but after a few episodes, it’s just boring. The concept for every episode is almost the same. The main character, Lucius Modestus can’t find an idea for a new bathhouse, he’s getting to Japan through water, finds something interesting and ... new, gets back to Rome, and do it in his project. And it’s just it, in all episodes which I watched. Maybe in another episode, something more is happening, but after 5 episodes I had enough.

From the cultural side, it’s kinda nice. You can learn something about Japanese and Roman bathhouses and culture. I didn’t know before a lot of things that were shown in anime, but the construction of the episode is just too much for me.

Anyway, Lucius is a kinda good character. You can see his motivation and goal in all this stuff, he understands what he needs to do and why what is uncommon in anime made by Netflix. His background is just the usual, dead father, dead grandfather, but it’s not about revenge. He just wants to be approved by Roman society and do bathhouses in which everyone can relax and regenerate to work for Rome even harder than before.

I also really appreciate that Lucius and Japanese people can’t communicate. It’s common to have a situation like “I’m Roman and can speak Japanese”, but here is nothing like it, he doesn’t understand them, they don’t understand him and that’s beautiful.

But here is my biggest problem, the main part of the episode ends and you wanna see the ending, but there’s no traditional ending. There is 2-3 min of the author’s story about how she discovered things that Lucius find out in that episode. I think it’s nice to do something like it, but maybe as another episode for people, that’s more interested in this.

That’s why I think this anime is 5/10. It has good elements, but after all, good anime is an anime which I can watch all episodes and don’t have to drop it in the middle. Thermae Romae Novae is just meh.

I never expected this show to be this enjoyable (for me that is). I thought it was going to be eh with how the synopsis is, but I guess having the centerpiece being Rome, not Japan, makes things more interesting.
I can understand viewers saying it is quite annoying with how many times he goes back and forth, but the main character does make it relatable by questioning everything with his brain and reworking it with what he has.
Also, I love the detail that they actually let him speak Roman when confronting people that don't speak his tongue, but it is also weird because in Rome ... he speaks Japanese, which is so weird.
In the Netflix version at the very end, there's a little addition to the show, which I like a lot.

Overall, this isn't for everyone but give it at least 3 episodes.

Thermae Romae Novae is an unusual series that I can’t quite recommend despite enjoying it to some extent. I watched it with my partner and we enjoyed it enough to finish it, at least.

In this series our main character is a bathhouse architect named Lucius Modestus. Every episode, he finds himself stuck on a certain aspect of his work, like writer’s block but for architects. Without fail, he manages to fall into a bath, moat, pond or similar and gets transported to a bath in Japan. Upon his arrival he does some exploration and examines everything that is foreign to him. With this fresh inspiration ... he returns home and manages to overcome his architect’s block, resulting in a job well done. The episodes make bathing seem so relaxing that I wish we had bathhouses like those in my country as well, but alas.

There’s nothing wrong with this premise. In fact, the crossover between Rome and Japan is quite novel. However, the bathhouse-of-the-week format quickly becomes repetitive. Not only that, Lucius is not at all a likeable character. He is so driven by his work and loyalty to Rome and the emperor that it causes issues in his marriage. The first episode is also meaningless and almost turned us off the series completely.

The artwork and animation is barely passable. I think I’m just not a fan of the style chosen here. The soundtrack and sound effects did their job. And as much as I like Tsuda Kenjirou’s voice, he is much more fitting for badass roles such as Tatsu in Way of the Househusband.

In the end, the series was entertaining mostly because it has an interesting premise. But together with the live action sections at the end, Thermae Romae Novae felt more like a tourist advertisement promoting Japanese bathing culture than a full-fledged anime series.