I'm up to episode 10 of Kamen Rider Black and one of the more interesting differences that I've noticed about this show is how much more Kotaro and the Gorgom interact with the world around them. More random, unimportant civilians, and more scenes taking place in areas with at least a few more people besides the important characters. This is something that I've noticed about a lot of older tokusatsu and its something that I kind of I miss. Stuff like that make it feel as though there's a bit more... life in world around the characters.

Kuuga have that feel too, but nowadays rider series are more closer to Shonen anime where the sense of reality is gone.

Yes! That's the perfect way to describe it! Modern Tokusatsu don't really have a sense of reality. I wonder why that is? Maybe reality is just too expensive.

It's still a kids show back in the early heisei era. However, I guess they decided to tone down and remove whatever adult elements/slice of life left in the shows. Even the death scenes aren't as tragic and disturbing as it used to be. I guess their main target audiencs the kids only watch tokusatsu and shonen anime for the flashiness to avoid reality, so putting realism would turn them off.

Makes sense. I won't say deaths aren't tragic or disturbing anymore, just take a look at Genm's death in Ex-Aid, but they're usually a lot less down to earth then they used to be. I guess tokusatsu's just becoming more and more like a live action anime with each passing decade.

Ex-Aid's first major character death was pretty tragic wasn't it? Especially what he said before he was found before the others

He just vanish after getting a game over. By today's standard toku characters keep getting revive in specials or hint there's hope in reviving them just take the emotional impact away like DBZ.

Gaim had a few deaths that were permanent and one particularly gruesome one if that's what you want

Gaim is one of the rare exception of the neo-Heisei series because of Urobutcher. I don't know if you're talking about Monster Hase, Monster Yuya, Sid, or Ryoma. I remember people joking about Sid and Ryoma death are like looney toons characters. Of course, you can't expect Amazons or Kuuga level of gruesome and multiple deaths each episode. I remember most of the supporting Faiz's characters have tragic endings even the main character. I always felt that Kiriya die too early before we get to know him more. We only get a few sprinkles of his past in the episodes where he gain a new form.

Dude, spoiler that shit! But Sid had a death that was anything but cartoony, getting fucking crushed. Not to mention Kiriya couldn't avenge his friend and obviously that hit him hard in his last moments