More rumors should start popping pretty soon right? When was Ex-Aid leaked again? I can't remember.

Best ensemble cast in the Heisei/Neo-Heisei Era in your guys' opinion?

Pre-Decade it's probably Kabuto for me. Ryuki had the better characters overall (and a glorious trio), but I felt like some of the 13 Riders were more cannon fodder than anything else. With Kabuto I feel like most, if not all Riders had an everlasting impact on the course of the story and stuck around to the end.

Post-Decade I'd go with Ex-Aid. Gaim is my favorite show of the era (duh) but I feel like as an ensemble cast it had its weaknesses because some characters heavily outshined others.

Drive had a good ensemble cast too since Shinnosuke, Gou and Chase were equally important and interesting throughout the show, but I think Ex-Aid takes it. Mostly because in the sense of a hospital drama the focus shifts from one doctor to the next but they still have relevance as a team.

And it's one of the few shows were I would include the bad guys in the ensemble cast as well since the show was very good with handling Genm and Parad so far. Granted, past shows could do that too, Ryuki did a great job with Asakura IMO, but in Ex-Aid I really feel like the whole package matters more than pushing a single hero.

And of course I like plenty more casts of other shows, but most of them only have two (or less) Riders so speaking of an ensemble cast isn't very realistic IMO.

Ex-Aid cast is still a bit small compare to Gaim and Kabuto. Gaim actually got more character developments early on because they ditch the biweekly guest format entirely. The only series with consecutive good guest of the week are W and Fourze because the guests are also the motw. Ex-Aid started pretty slow and the toys spamming is too obvious, but it handle it a lot better than Ghost. I felt like Ex-Aid need to bring in some minor supporting characters to increase the stakes and help the heroes when needed like a lot of pre-Decade riders(minus Den-o) and Gaim.

For the Heisei era, it's gotta be Blade for me. All of the Riders just play so well off of each other.

Neo-Heisei, definitely Ex-Aid. I still can't decide on a favorite Rider because everybody shines.

Can anyone point to me to a list of essential Black episodes? I don't have a good stomach for filler, and that series is supposed to have a lot of it despite its stellar reputation.

That's because there's less than 5 episodes of filler in Blade. I'm sticking to Gaim and W for now, but maybe Ex-aid can surpass them in the 2nd half.

IIRC, Ex-Aid has exactly the same number of actual Riders as Kabuto, when accounting for the fact that TheBee was used by multiple users who all went on to become different Riders (outside of Mishima). Outside of the Riders, I can't think of anybody else that'd you consider a part of Kabuto's core cast outside of Hiyori, who fails to be a character so much as a plot device (as female supporting characters in Rider tend to be most of the time, unfortunately).

Even still though, more isn't always better. I absolutely love Gaim, but some characters got completely sidelined as the plot decided they were no longer relevant. Oren and Jonouchi would often disappear for chunks of the show, Yoko and Sid pretty much existed solely to be punching bags for the middle portion of the show before Yoko essentially became the Kamen Rider equivalent of a golddigger (her best moments as a character IMO were in the Gorider mini-series).

With Kabuto, I'd have to disagree with Kiwami as I felt some characters were, once again, sidelined. Pretty much every Rider outside of Gatack was established as some sort of rival to Tendou, but then once that didn't pan out so well for them, they were either demoted to comedy relief (Tsurugi), disappeared from the show entirely (Daisuke) or went off and had some weird emo phase (both of the Hopper brothers).

Ex-Aid has done a pretty damn good job of keeping ALL characters relevant to the plot, even when they aren't physically present. The only character I can think of who isn't important is Hiiro's dad, and it's arguable if he can even be considered a part of the main cast anymore.

I feel that Ex-Aid does a great job of combining the two-episode format with ongoing plot developments. Nothing really feels like filler in it IMO - even the Burgermon episode was essential :lol.

If there is one advantage Gaim has over it is that it has more universal themes. Kouta, Baron and Micchy were characters to whose struggles I could relate to an extent; I guess you can relate to Ex-Aid's characters if you are a doctor and/or an avid gamer?

You could say that, though I feel that while the show is about doctors, the overall theme is moreso about death itself, learning to accept that death is inevitable, even when you're somebody whose job is to literally prevent it. Funny enough, I feel like this is something Ghost should have handled but death was treated like a temporary condition in that show. But let me not rant about Ghost right now :lol