Like, is it just an allegory for diesease and pestilince that tends to grow in swampy, damp, dark places or is there actually a type of body of liquid that would be poisonous to tread through and not by injesting or infecting through an open wound? 🤔
Don’t give Miyazaki any more ideas
Jokes aside, closest I can think of would be trenches in WWI and a good chunk of the Netherlands (or was it Belgium) when Germany was nearly taking it also in WWI and the defending army decided to flood the region.
Also maybe if a swamp receives high quantities of radioactive material, though the poisoning wouldn’t require direct contact in such scenario.
Belgium mentioned!
I think you’re referring to this https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inundatie_van_de_IJzervlakte (Dutch language wikipedia, your browser can probably translate well enough)
Fairly sure that’s it indeed. Thanks for confirming!