... oh, on a point completely unconnected to Kuuga (but, kind of, considering era starters): have you started Zero-One? Or do you want to do all the Heiseis before that?

Unfortunately for me, yeah, I really want to close out Heisei before I jump to a current series. I don't think I'll be able to start watching a currently-airing show until probably whatever's after Zero-One.

It's like, I can't watch Zero-One until I watch Zi-O. I don't know how strictly true that is in the sense of spoilers or narrative connections, y'all who've seen Zero-One might be like "Don't worry about it", but my brain won't let me. But I can't watch Zi-O until I watch the first 10 Heisei Riders, so, yeah. This is the mental prison I've built for myself.

This is exactly why I went through the whole Heisei era back in ‘09 before I watched Decade.

Like, I don't know who I blame more, us or the shows. Why can't we just watch something without feeling like we need to consume a decade's worth of barely-relevant content? And why does a franchise built around yearly, unique stories feel the need to put in just enough connection to past series to make us feel like we're robbing ourselves of enjoyment by not watching everything? You never know when there's going to be a movie appearance by a Rider who hasn't shown up in years, or when you might hit an unlucky year and get an entire series dedicated to past series, so you better be watching everything.

It, man. It makes me wonder sometimes if I'm being obsessive, or if I'm being manipulated.

Well, how do I put this... I watched Decade after only watching Kiva, Kabuto and Den-O (and also every post-Decade show at that point). I was able to enjoy it without watching all the other shows, and with me now only having Blade and about half of Faiz to go; I'm looking forward to a rewatch!

I crab about feeling locked into watching a certain amount of Kamen Rider shows in a certain order, but, like, I love watching Kamen Rider shows. It's a good problem to have, all of these unwatched series! Still a problem, but, y'know, I don't mean to sound, like, furious at Terrence Toei, the president of Toei (check the wiki!).

Of all the cool-sounding Heisei Phase 1 series (Den-O! Kiva! Ryuki! Hibiki!), I think the one I'm most curious about is Blade. No spoilers, but it's weird to me how many fans mention that as the one Heisei series they haven't done. My only exposure to any of Blade was the Gorider series, which I thought was enormously clever. He seemed okay in it? But, yeah, I know that Blade didn't do so hot on broadcast, and it doesn't seem to get a lot of love in the fandom, so that's interesting to me. I'm looking forward to finding out maybe why that's a series so many fans skip, or save until later.

My reason for not watching Blade yet is...

...

Not sure. I decided my remaining four Heisei Shows (Kuuga, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade) should be done in order, but aside from that it was mostly individual circumstances. I wanted to get Hibiki "out of the way" because of all the bad things I'd heard about it, and I wanted to watch Agito before Kuuga because everyone told me to do the exact opposite. So it really just ends up that Blade is my last out of circumstance which is fun, because I keep hearing nothing but good things about it and initially it was the FIRST pre-W show I wanted to check out! Partly because, fun fact; in Fourze X OOO, the monsters Aqua was shown fighting in the future? Re-used suits from Blade.

Oh, okay, I was worried you'd held off because of negative impressions. Good to know! That and Ryuki are the ones from the first five Heisei that I'm keen to get to. I hope Blade is worth the wait for you!

Neat!

I have seen everything from Kuuga onwards apart from maybe the odd movie except I stopped watching Ghost and I don't mean to be controversial early on but I also gave up watching W! Maybe I missed something in that show seeing as most people liked it but for one reason or another I just couldn't get into it.

It's totally okay if W didn't work for you. Don't worry about it! It's definitely gotten a lot of love, though, so (despite the subjectivity of all art) you may want to give it a second look if you're feeling left out. If it still doesn't work for you, hey, you gave it a fair shot.

I'd also say Ghost might be worth re-examining, especially the middle episodes, but I think I'd get a lot less backup from others on that point.

Also, welcome to the boards! These folks are great. They'll take good care of you.