Review: Love Full of Scars

Love Full of Scars
傷だらけの愛羅武勇
Psyche Delico.
2008 – Tokyo Mangasha. 2009 – Netcomics
Genre: Comedy, Drama, School Life, Yaoi
Buy: USA , Rent it
Rating: 18+

Love Full of Scars by Delico Psyche follows some of the rougher, odder, and even taboo relationships known to the yaoi genre.
The stories in Love Full of Scars tell of both the physical and emotional marks that tough love can leave on a person.
Love Full of Scars is a compilation of several short stories that gravitate around rough but surprisingly cute men. Of course we also have several bishies here, but it was such a pleasant surprise to find hairy, old and though men acting in such a lovely way.

‘Cause I love every bit of you is the first chapter. This is an hilarious story about two high school students that met by chance, Minamibo Yoko and Saito Yukio. Yoko is completely beautiful and seemingly fragile in Saito’s eyes. Besides, since he is always sporting some kind of minor injury, Saito feels bothered to the point he starts imagining all kind of scenes that seem taken from your average boys love story; Minamibo is sexually abused by almost anyone in these delusions. However, appearances are deceiving, especially with these two boys.

Minamibo looks gorgeous even with bandages

Then we have Driving School Romance were Ishimoto meets the creator of his favorite manga character, Kanaya, in the driving school. They easily become friends, even getting drunk together. Ishimoto is touched by the loneliness of Kanaya to the point of thinking of him as cute. The morning after is a combination of confusion and a completely hilarious train of thought, as Ishimoto realizes he might have done something more than just wrestling with Kanaya.

A Delusional Couple’s Romance is a crazy story, more like a comedy with touches of shounen and…well…a bit of incest. Aki is coming back home after 2 years, eager to meet with his cute little brother but, guess what he finds instead? a 13 years old that looks more like an adult tug. Aki’s dreams of pampering his younger brother are shattered for a moment, until he realizes Hirofumi is still the same inside. Well, that’s when his weird delusions and attempts at brotherly love start, but Hirofumi is now avoiding him, causing things to spiral into an incredibly hilarious nonsense that manages to be very cute.

I can

Love full of scars is the main story for this book, composed by three chapters (and an extra at the end of the manga). Kanda Seishiro and Uesaka Kaname are both school delinquents, you could say they are the toughest guys in there. Since he was defeated for the first time, Uesaka keeps on following Kanda around to fight with him. And, only god knows why, between all that beating, Kanda felt in love with the honorable Ueasaka. However, that doesn’t seem to stop his punches and insults; even when Kanda wants to express his love he only manages to do exactly the opposite of what he is thinking. Quite endearing, really, he is like a lovely maiden on the inside and a foul-mouthed violent tug on the outside. Uesaka has my total respect, not only he manages to sort all of that out, he is also resolved to convince Kanda’s deamon drag-queen older brother of his good intentions. How amazing is that!

Seishiro is definitely my favorite character here

The last story, A Vortex of Love, features the demon brother’s side of the story. Kanda Kotaro has been working in a club as a transvestite, called Ruby, for a long time. Ever since their parents death, he has become the only family and support to his little brother Seishiro, until the point that he never thought much about himself. Seeing  his brother grow up and find love, Ruby is becoming very lonely. Misato Yuji, a co-worker, is always trying to cheer Ruby up, to offer him his love. The problem is Ruby only thinks that way of someone he hurt deeply in the past, even when he barely remembers that little boy from middle school. To top it all, Misato’s kindness only seems to trigger those regretful memories even more.

The older brother is very sexy...and dangerous

Honestly, Psyche Delico won me out with only this manga. Because all the stories are amazingly cute, hilarious and touching at the same time, I couldn’t help it. They are all very sexy too, without being extremely explicit, in the intimate scenes; the strong, violent and rough appeal of the characters is what provides this effect. The mangaka doesn’t shy away from some facial and body hair, not so cute hair styles (really what’s up with Hirofumi’s hair? That thing is alive!), bashed up faces, oldies and drag queens. Not only that, these characters are full of quirks, sometimes very weird ones, and aren’t they lewd with so many delusions? What I liked the most, of course, was the unexpected ways the roles took, not following the usual pattern in BL were you could easily predict the top. All that diversity is very welcomed, especially with the smooth and simple art style that makes all the characters attractive: Love Full of Scars is a bunch of sexy awkward rough men on a plate.

This manga might not be considered a masterpiece, but it’s a really nice pick if you want to feel good and get into a story without excessive amounts of drama. The surprising turns, hilarious characters and engaging flow are its outstanding points. I just wish there was more of these one-shots, after all, I love them that crazy.

My rating: 3.5/5

Special thanks to NETCOMICS for providing a review digital copy.