Lagoon Engine

    (Tokyopop, 2005-Present)
™ and © 2002 Yukiru Sugisaki
right to left reading format; b&w

From the creator of DNAngel comes Lagoon Engine, a magical boy coming-of-age story about Yen and Jin Ragun, a pair of elementary school-aged brothers whose family business just so happens to be ghost-busting. Drawing on Japanese folk mythology, the “Maga,” or ghosts (also translatable as spirits or demons) in the world of Lagoon Engine are fought not brute strength or chi blasts, but through words and research. To know an opponent’s true name gives power over him, and when the secret name has been revealed and called out, the battle ends and the spirit can be exorcised. (This weakness applies to both sides, however, and the brothers must guard their true names at all costs—even from each other.)

Echoing Sugisaki’s popular work on DNAngel, Lagoon Engine is also a story about children coming learning to balance their unusual family responsibilities with the demands of a normal life in the world around them. An ensemble cast soon joins the two protagonists to help them along the way, including: a spunky girl next door, a distant cousin who’s come to live with the Ragun’s, and a complimentary fighter from another branch of the Ragun family. Sugisaki’s artwork is clean and straightforward, and the characters, although breaking no new ground here, are likeable and spirited.

— Shiaw-Ling Lai
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