On February 22nd, a premiere for upcoming movie “Thermae Romae” was held at Cinema The Space in Rome, Italy. The main cast members Abe Hiroshi, Ueto Aya, and the director of the movie Takeuchi Hideki attended this overseas stage greeting.

“Thermae Romae” is a live-action adaptation of Yamazaki Mari’s popular manga.  It’s a story of Lucius (played by Abe), a bath design engineer, who slips through time between Ancient Rome and modern Japan. The audience for this Rome premiere was almost all local Italian people, so Abe and Ueto greeted them in Italian.

Before the screening started, Abe told that fans he felt anxious if the Japanese sense of humor would be accepted by the Italian people present. However, despite his anxiety, once the screening started, the theater was full of laugh from start to finish.  The moment the end credits finished, the audience gave Abe and Ueto standing ovations with “Bravo!“.

Ueto went onstage once again after the screening.  She told the audience, “I see all of your face expressions are more sparkling than before the screening started, which tells me that you all enjoyed the movie. So I am very happy.”  Both Abe and Ueto also received a lot of compliments from the audience.

Audience members exclaimed with a big smiles, “We are really happy. It was worth coming all the way to Rome,” and other positive feedback.

“Thernae Romae” is scheduled to be released in Japan on April 28th.