Alternative titles: Scared Rider Xechs
Anime Original by Satelight
Streaming on Funimation

Premise

A battle task force of pretty boys (who are also a band) fight inter-dimensional monsters called “Nightfly O’Note” by fusing with elemental creatures.

Iro’s verdict: Not Dumb Enough

This show could have been a thousand times more entertaining if it was just a little more willing to be dumb as hell. Which isn’t to say it isn’t already dumb as hell, with monsters called Nightfly O’Notes and a boy band being a henshin hero team, but it seems to demand to also be taken seriously. There are mysterious capsules containing cute girls, protesting scientists being killed to not get in the way of The Plan, and in general people treating the whole transforming thing as if it isn’t a silly plot device to have a multicolored squad of fighters. I guess Satelight figured the aimed-at-ladies version of Symphogear needed to be more brooding?

Aqua’s verdict: Wake Me Up After You’re Gone-Gone

Scar-red Rider Xechs is a little bit of everything, it has the technobabble of a mecha show, the colourful camp of a tokusatsu show, the cast of an boyband docudrama and the general premise of a lousy light novel about yet another generic everyman discovering a mysterious naked girl in that kind of pod mysterious naked anime girls are generally stored in, if they’re not falling from the sky or being born from unidentifiable minerals. The admittedly original twist here is that the girl in question looks to be the heroine of the original dating sim, which has me wondering if Xechs has some kind of interesting spin on the whole mysterious naked girl thing going on. Sadly, the show isn’t really interesting enough to make me come back to find out. Despite looking like some kind of unholy teamup between Wham! and the Backstreet Boys, the boys are just as immediately identifiable as your run-of-the-mill light novel harem, and of the interesting premise promised by the promo blurb very little seems to remain. There is some entertainment to be gleaned from the self-aware cheesiness with which Scar-red Rider Xechs waltzes across the screen, but in the end, it’s undeserving of your attention – especially in a season already stuffed with handsome lads.