Some of which I've either been meaning to read for ages, or been meaning not to read for ages but finally decided to (hello, Naruto). I'm not gonna do full reviews, but I did write down some thoughts.

One Piece (East Blue saga, or volume 1-11)

• Great vibes, and fun characters for the most part.
• Initially, the story feels kind of unfocused and at times poorly paced, but people were right: it does improve a lot starting with the Arlong Park arc. Hopefully this keeps up.
• Even with Arlong Park, though, I did notice that Luffy was written to be out of the way, almost certainly because he's so strong he'd end the conflict too quickly. This does make me a little worried about how future arcs will go, but I'm keeping an open mind.
• While I like the adventuring, the fights often feel a bit drawn out.
• The flashback to Nami's childhood, with her foster family's struggles, was the highlight of the series, and I (unfortunately??) cared more about it than the main story.
• There's often an overreliance on wacky reaction faces in place of actual jokes. A shame, because the series can be very funny.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (omnibus 1, or volume 1-2)

• Great adaptation of the original Gundam show, that feels faithful while keeping things fresh. I think I might prefer this to the original.
• Beautiful artwork - particularly the watercolor pages, but also the black-and-white ones.
• I keep wondering if it all would've been as easy to follow if I hadn't already watched the orginal. But I have, and I guess the target audience is people who have, so maybe that's not an issue?

Witch Hat Atelier (volume 1)

• Ridiculously strong first impression. If it keeps up like this, it might be my second favorite manga of all time, after Yotsuba&!.
• Really captures the joy and wonder of curiousity, learning, and creating, and has very cute and fun writing, balanced against occasional darker elements without going overboard with them.
• Just absolutely beautiful art.
• I love this series.

Soara and the House of Monsters (volume 1)

• Very much succeeds at the intended appeal of the series - seeing the characters building cozy and practical new homes, tailor-made for various monsters and for the problems they had with their previous houses, and getting a comparison between the old and new homes.
• The environment art is great, and really enhances this. The character art varies.
• The characters are unfortunately very flat and one-note. I really wish they had a bit more depth and had conversations with each other outside of expositing about the houses they're building.
• There's not really much story... the series rushes through the introduction, where the war between humans and monsters has ended, and then doesn't really progress after Soara joins the traveling dwarf architects.
• I did in the end have a pretty good time, but I'm unsure if I want to continue.

Goodbye, Eri

• Fujimoto's best work by far. Emotional, funny, and sad, and kept me glued to my book for the entirety of it. It's short enough that I don't know if I want to write anything more specific about it. Check it out if you have the time and energy.

Naruto (Part 1, or volume 1-27)

• The fights are uninteresting like 95% of the time, and starting with the practical portions of the chunin exams, there's a lot of fights. Do we really need to see every fight, rather than just the ones involving the primary characters?
• The writing of Gaara and Sasuke is too grimdark and edgy for my taste a lot of the time.
• Maybe this is just how things were in shounen manga back in the day, but Jiraiya - an otherwise fun character - being a pervert who spies on bathing women is intensely unfunny. I'm not opposed to sex comedy, but this really doesn't work for me.
• Sakura, Hinata, and Rock Lee are compelling and fun, more than any other characters, and unfortunately all three of them (Lee to a lesser extent) get sidelined during the latter third or so.
• Seeing the characters training, studying, and going on missions together was a lot of fun, though. The series was at its best in the beginning, up to the end of the theoretical portion of the chunin exams. I really wish we had gotten more of this, and seen the characters and their relationships develop prior to the exams, and for the exams and everything afterward to have been more compressed.
• I'll be back for Part 2, but I need to take a break from this for a while.