Mar 30, 2010

Bathing Culture MANGA "THERMAE ROMAE"

[update] A movie version of "Thermae Romae" starring Hiroshi Abe, Aya Ueto, Masachika Ichimura and others will be released in April 2012. I'm not sure if you can see this movie outside of Japan.

Japan is getting more famous for its subculture than manufacturing products among younger generations recently. One of them is MANGA. The word "MANGA" stands for cartoons, but it's different from American cartoons as many of you already knows.

I bought a MANGA book worth mentioning in this blog last week. The title is "THERMAE ROMAE", staged in ancient Roman Empire under the emperor Hadrianus. Lucius, the main character of the MANGA is an architect of Roman baths, accidentally time warps to present Japan.

He doesn't know what happened to him, and recognizes the Japanese in 21st century as "flat faced slaves with very high level of bathing culture". He comes and goes between Roman Empire and present Japan several times, and makes success by building Japanese style bath houses in Roman Empire.

The vol.1 of the serial MANGA books came out in last Dec. and is to continue. It was awarded "Cartoon Grand Prize 2010" this month. Mari Yamazaki, creator of the MANGA has studied in Italy, and lives in Portugal now.

[Related post] Animated "THERMAE ROMAE" (Feb 26 2012)

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