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I am looking for a manga/manhwa that I read 30 years ago (around 1992 or 1993) in South Korea.

What I remember is this:
the protagonist seems to be a djinn/jinn or similar entity but with an outward appearance of a slender boy. He seems to be trying to rescue a girl who might have gotten abducted by the antagonist - a being similar to the protagonist but initially much more powerful. In order to reach him and the girl, the protagonist has to defeat powerful foes who possess unique fighting abilities (unsure about that). The protagonist seems to have to advance from one level to the next (I don't know if it is another dimension or a structure such as a tower). Floor by floor (or plane, or level) the enemies the boy is forced to defeat get stronger or show more surprising abilities/attacks (again, unsure).

The protagonist's most powerful attack seems to be a sort of "black hole" spell/attack/ability. He puts both his fists together in front of him and between his fists he creates a sort of "black sphere" or "black hole". I am not sure, but the main antagonist also seems to be able to generate this type of spell/attack but can create two or more at the same time, which initially renders him stronger than the protagonist. Of course, the djinn/jinn boy still manages to somehow win and free the girl (I think...).

In my mind, he, the enemies on every floor/plane and the main antagonist seem to have been djinn/jinn, at least I remember them addressing each other in such terms, but it could very well be that this is just a fabrication of my own mind. Likewise, the aesthetics also seem to have had an oriental/Middle Eastern touch, but again, that could just be a product of my own imagination.

It was written in Korean, however, I don't know if it was a translation from a Japanese manga or an original manhwa from a Korean artist and author.

The art style was definitely manga/manhwa, not western comic and it was in black and white, no colour.

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    Hi, welcome to the site. Was this manga/manhwa full colour, or mostly black & white? Jan 25, 2022 at 8:08
  • You could improve this question by going through the checklists here and editing in any relevant info you can think to add.
    – Valorum
    Jan 25, 2022 at 8:17
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    Any idea how many chapters/volumes you read, or how often the characters use this black sphere attack? I found something that looks like a good match for everything except this black sphere attack (Arabian Majin Boukentan Lamp Lamp), but maybe they just haven't started using it yet.
    – qazmlpok
    Jan 26, 2022 at 13:45
  • @qazmlpok You might be onto something. I managed to check out the art style and while it is a bit different from what I remember it is still a very good fit. My mind most likely warped the images a bit. The story also kinda fits. I am not absolutely 100% sure yet but this looks extremely promising. I am pretty sure that I read the last few chapters. How on earth did you find it? I tried to identify this manga on and off for the better part of 25 years through dozens of search engines by typing in "djinn, jinn, manga, black hole, black sphere, level progression" and what not :D
    – minuz
    Jan 27, 2022 at 7:42
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    @minuz I use anime-planet or mangaupdates mostly, but other anime/manga databases have their own sets of tags. Everything is user supplied, so it's typically hard to find old or niche series, and sometimes a series is only properly filled out on one site and not another. Really this was just getting lucky, considering how old it was.
    – qazmlpok
    Jan 28, 2022 at 1:48

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This may be Arabian Majin Boukentan Lamp Lamp, a Japanese manga from 1991. It's possible it was translated into Korean, but I don't know of any English-language databases that would list this, and I can't read Korean.

In a world where djinn rule and humans are enslaved, Toto and Loukir break the seals of the century-old prison of the "gentle genie," Rampou, in order to try and save their country...

There are numerous similarities, but I did not see any use of any kind of black hole or sphere attack. It's possible this only comes later on - the manga was never licensed in English and the fantranslation stops halfway through.

The main character is a genie, and the antagonists are evil djinni (I don't know if this distinction exists in the original Japanese or if it was made up in English). Shortly after defeating the first evil djinn, the main antagonist kidnaps a woman that Rampou fell in love with at first sight, and he sets off to rescue her.

Among his trials is to enter a castle and fight each of the "guardians", I believe each with unique powers.

enter image description here

It's possible he only gets this black hole attack after defeating each of these, but I can't confirm this.

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