Thermae Romae

Bizarre manga where a Roman-age bath expert gets to time travel and learn the wonders of bath culture across time. Failing to understand modern technology, he often makes cargo cult copies of his experiences.

Reading the manga Thermae Romae. Seems great. This has been on my reading list pretty much since the beginning, when I first got into anime and manga, but I never dared approach it because of the heavy sounding synopsis. But it’s quite easy to read actually, apart from some difficult language.

Some things I love about this manga:

• It makes me appreciate the luxuries of modern life.
• MC’s fixation with baths is funny — he could bring any technology back from the fantastic futures he visits but all he thinks about is the baths.
• MC is a nice portrayal of a creator getting sudden inspiration.
• The episodic pattern of MC encountering a design problem, going under, finding answers, passing out and coming back to implement them in his makeshift ways.
• The manga manages to contrast Japanese people with the western gaijin image magnificently.
• The way MC is on one hand very receptive to new ideas but on the other hand still thinks in a very Roman way is funny. For example how he assumes everyone is a slave and wears bath robes like togas. Also his lack of understanding makes his reimplementations of the inventions fall short in hilarious ways.

Seems bizarre that this has been adapted to a short anime and live action show too.