The CV of Masashi Ando, who makes his directing debut with The Deer King, reads like a greatest hits list of Japanese animation. He worked alongside Hayao Miyazaki on Studio Ghibli titles including Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke; more recently, he was the animation director on Makoto Shinkai’s anime hit Your Name.
It’s not surprising, then, that The Deer King is a strikingly handsome work. But the clear lines of the elegant 2D animation are not matched by the mythic muddle of the storytelling, an exposition-heavy slog of warring factions, convoluted webs of enchantment and a deadly, wolf-borne pandemic for good measure.