Thermae Romae Novae

Alternate Title

テルマエ・ロマエ ノヴァエ

Synopsis

Lucius is an architect living in ancient Rome who specializes in thermae bath houses and is trying to come up with new, novel ideas to set his bath houses apart. One day, while working on an outdoor bath house, he stumbles upon a hidden tunnel inside a well and ends up in a bath house in modern day Japan! Fascinated by the innovations he sees there, he begins to bring the ideas he gleans from his trips to the modern world back with him to create a new mix of modern and ancient aesthetics.

Background

Thermae Romae is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Mari Yamazaki that was serialized in Enterbrain’s Comic Beam seinen manga magazine 2008 to 2013 and was published in six collected tankobon volumes. The series won the third Manga Taisho Award in 2010 and the Short Story Award at the 14th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize the same year. The manga has been licensed for English release in North America by Yen Press.

Since its release, the series has spawned a mix of different media adaptations, including two live-action film adaptations (Thermae Romae in 2012 and Thermae Romae II in 2014), a TV anime adaptation produced by flash animation studio DLE that aired in January 2012 during Fuji TV’s Noitamina programming block and spanned five episodes, several social mobile games including Thermae Romae: Oke Reversi and Thermae Romae: Onsen Tamago in 2011 and Thermae Romae: Net de Gacha Gacha in 2012, all three of which were developed by Mobage, and a mystery-solving event titled “Thermae Romae: Nazo no Yu - Roman Hito mo Nazotoki ga Osuki” which was sponsored by Tokyo Bouz and DeNA and held to celebrate the release of Thermae Romae II in 2014.

Thermae Romae Novae is an upcoming original net animation (ONA) that was first announced during Netflix Anime Festival 2020. It is being produced by animation studio NAZ and features Tetsuya Tatamitani as director, with Mari Yamazaki handling series composition, Yuichiro Momose penning the script, Fumihiro Nagata handling character designs, and Ryo Kawasaki composing the music. The anime’s opening theme song is "Togyushi no Uta Onsen Manner no Aria", an adaptation of Georgez Bizet's aria "Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre" which is being sung by opera singer and actor Paolo Andrea di Pietro. The anime premiered worldwide on Netflix on March 28, 2022.

Characters

Lucius (Voiced by: Kenjiro Tsuda)
The protagonist of the series, he is a Roman architect specializing in thermae bath houses who learned the latest building techniques in Athens. He is proud of his work as a craftsman and can get so absorbed in his work that he loses sight of his surroundings. He is also patriotic and stubborn, and is proud to be Roman. After discovering a hidden tunnel that led to a modern day Japanese bath house, he becomes inspired by the innovations and creates his own bath house named Roma Thermae, where he blends modern themes into the architecture of the time.

Marcus (Voiced by: Chikahiro Kobayashi)
A stonemason and sculptor living in Rome. He is single and lives with his elderly master. He and Lucius are old acquaintances and go to the baths together, where they drink and converse. In contrast to Lucius, he has a cheerful and vivacious personality and is fond of women. He is a good advisor for Lucius and helps him recreate in Rome the new innovations he brings back from modern Japan.

Markus Annius Verus (Voiced by: Junya Enoki)
A bright 15-year-old boy whom Hadrian secretly recognizes as a future candidate for emperor, although he hasn’t yet nominated him as his successor due to his young age. Because of his intelligence and thoughtfulness, he has been appointed as the chief administrator. Like Hadrian, he has confidence in Lucius, who has come up with a number of ideas from his time in modern Japan.

Livia (Voiced by: Sanae Kobayashi)
Lucius’ ex-wife who leaves him to fulfill her desire to have children due to Lucius being away for so long.

Regulus (Voiced by: Satoshi Hino)
A worker under Lepidus’ employ who is tasked with helping Lucius build an outdoor bath house in the mountains, where Lucius stumbles upon a hidden tunnel that leads him to modern day Japan.

Yoshida (Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai)
An architect in modern day Japan who specializes in Japanese baths and was hired to build a Roman bath. He meets Lucius when he comes to the modern world and learns a great deal from him about Roman baths.

Emperor Hadrianus (Voiced by: Tsutomu Isobe)
Commonly known as Hadrian, he is the emperor of the Roman Empire. He wishes to keep peace rather than rule through war and sees building new thermae as a way to do so. He hires Lucius to do just that.

Ceionius (Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya)
Hadrian’s son and the successor to the throne.

Mami Yamaguchi (Voiced by: Asami Seto)

Kuniyoshi Utagawa (Voiced by: Shuichi Ikeda)

Music

Opening Theme Song: "Togyushi no Uta Onsen Manner no Aria" by Paolo Andrea di Pietro

Netflix (Japanese)

• Original Creator: Mari Yamazaki
• Director: Tetsuya Tatamitani
• Series Composition: Mari Yamazaki
• Script: Yuichiro Momose
• Character Design: Fumihiro Nagata
• Art Director: Masakazu Miyake
• Color Design: Hitomi Fujii
• CGI Director: Kunihiko Mita
• Director of Photography: Toshikazu Kuno
• Editing: Yuta Onishi
• Sound Director: Ryō Tanaka
• Sound Editor: Masatoshi Katsumata
• Music Director: Katsuhiko Asano
• Music: Ryo Kawasaki
• Music Production: Chie Nakamura (Drive), Tomoyuki Kono (Drive)
• Executive Producer: Liu Yi Xu, Mari Yamazaki
• Producer: Yasuo Suda
• Production/Planning: Netflix
• Animation Production: NAZ