Demetrios, a timid and kind vase painter in Ancient Greece, who dislikes sports and competitions, is one day forced to come up with a game to compete with the mayor of the neighboring town, in order to save his village. While hiding inside a large vase outside his workshop, lightning strikes the vase Demetrios is in, transferring him to Tokyo, Japan, during the 1964 Summer Olympics.

When Roman architect Lucius is criticized for his “outdated” thermae designs, he retreats to the local bath to collect his thoughts. All Lucius wants is to recapture the Rome of earlier days, when one could enjoy a relaxing bath without the pressure of merchants and roughhousing patrons. Slipping deeper into the warm water, Lucius is suddenly caught in the suction and dragged through the drainage at the bottom of the bath! He emerges coughing and sputtering amid a group of strange-looking foreigners with the most peculiar bathhouse customs... over 1,500 years in the future in modern-day Japan! His contemporaries wanted him to modernize, and so, borrowing the customs of these mysterious bath-loving people, Lucius opens what quickly becomes the most popular new bathhouse in Rome—Thermae Romae!
(Source: Yen Press)
Winner of the 3rd Manga Taisho Award (2010).

It portrays the famous naturalist Plinius. From volcanic explosions and tidal waves to the ecology of plants and animals, the work reproduces the world of Natural History, the Plinius encyclopedia describing the universe. This is a definitive historical Roman romance depicting the world 2,000 years ago through astounding composition and realistic draftsmanship.