Unwelcome Currents

Abstract This article interprets the representation of communicable diseases in Japanese animated films The Deer King (鹿の王, 2021) and Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫, 1997) as culturally specific examples of posthuman pathogenesis, ambivalent and transcorporeal assemblages of posthuman subjects and more-than-human agencies that implicate sociocultural factors and ecodegradation as inherent actors in pandemic events. The release of Ando and Miyaji’s pandemic narrative The Deer King during the COVID-19 pandemic prompts serious consideration of the ways narratives intra-act with material realities. Though numerous naturalcultural agencies are recognized in the complex unfolding of the disease event in The Deer King, various damaging tropes pertaining to Priscilla Wald’s “outbreak narrative” are perpetuated. This article thus returns to Miyazaki Hayao’s earlier film as an example of posthuman pathogenesis that models a sounder ecological ethics. By analyzing the way supernatural beings in Miyazaki’s film represent infection, pollution, and spiritual-material-bodily imbrication in conjunction with material ecocritical and posthumanist theories, this article explores what is risked and what can be gained from engaging in cross-cultural analysis of pandemic narratives during times of planetary crisis.