Danica Davidson
May 10, 2013 
Lucius is a down and out architect living in ancient Rome. His ideas on building public baths are seen as too antiquated, and this causes him to lose his job. A friend drags him to a public bath in an attempt to get Lucius to relax and feel better about life.
Instead, Lucius is sucked down into the water by a strong and mysterious force. When he surfaces, he’s at a public bath in modern Japan.
Lucius is stunned by all the modern technology and marvels in front of him. Hair dryers! Bottled drinks! Cars! He tries talking to the people around him, but they don’t understand his Latin and he doesn’t understand their Japanese. Then his vision around him fades and he wakes up back in the Roman bath house. But he knows it wasn’t a dream, because he still has the bottled drink with him.
Lucius starts to make his own creations based on what he saw in Japan, and soon the book’s pattern emerges. After his first time-travel-through-water trip, Lucius goes back and forth to Japan multiple times. He can’t control it, though the travel times are quite convenient. As Lucius makes everything from water slides to cleansing toilets, his career in Rome skyrockets. Before too long he catches the attention of Emperor Hadrian, and then he’s hanging out with the big boys of Rome. Many people love him, but others grow to hate him out of envy. And anyone who knows about ancient Rome knows that with power comes great danger . . .
Thermae Romae has a pretty simple premise, as Lucius travels back and forth in time, borrowing ideas from modern Japan and having great luck with them in his native Rome. This isn’t a manga with high drama, but it’s very enjoyable, like relaxing in a hot bath. (In fact, this manga’s basically guaranteed to make you want a nice, long bath.) Mari Yamazaki’s art is excellent and you can see that there are some definite Roman artistic influences on how she draws her characters. I especially enjoyed it when she drew detailed scenes of ancient Roman streets. Besides being good at details, she’s good at humor: Lucius is constantly shocked by what he finds in Japan, and the expressions on his face never stop being a riot. Since Thermae Romae has both a delightful story and great artwork, it’s easy to see why it’s already sold 8 million copies.
Publisher: Yen Press
Story & Art: Mari Yamazaki
