[MaskedRiderAsakura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoidinToku

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.

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.