Hmm…I mean I should probably note that as a transmasculine person, the fact that the lead is a trans man is a big sell for me because it’s rare that I get to ‘see’ that aspect myself in any kind of media, much less manga. So that will definitely have something to do with it. But I do think that it you can also tell that it’s written by someone who has lived that experience. More details in the drop down (I’ve stayed high level to avoid spoilers)
サマリー
I think in general the difference for me is that when I’ve read things by cis authors featuring/about trans people they either tend to be a non-stop trauma fest and very ‘this is Trans 101’ (and often really feel like ‘this is what a cis person thinks it must be like to be trans’), or the characters trans-ness is very much backgrounded (I’ve read enough of the former to prefer the latter by now haha). Granted, I’ve only read a chapter so far but the difference to me so far seems to be that because it gets the emotion right, it can make you invested even in the smaller things. While the main character is different from me in many ways there are certain things that happen or inner monologues where I was very much like “oh yeah, I remember thinking just like that” or remembering something really close happening to me and how that felt. So yeah, a lot of my love for it so far is very personal so it might not have quite that level of engagement for all others but idk, I think it’s great so far! Also, I get the sense already that it’s not going to just be about the characters identity (although that’s obviously important) but also about him working with friends to do something he loves and that always gets me.
I also just read this chapter the other day! Was also surprised by the bit in spoilers, just expected silliness from early Naruto tbh. I was originally planning on Naruto being my ‘low effort’ manga but as soon as Kakashi and other adult characters showed up (but mainly Kakashi) I also found myself having to look up a lot. I did notice quite a few times that new words repeated fairly frequently so I’m hoping that over time things might sink in and reduce the amount of lookups needed.
I’m a よつばと fan so I’ll give my two cents here! I think part of it is that as @vonnutje said, it’s a manga that centres around a child and has quite a lot of other child characters so it does tend to have simpler dialogue and more every day vocab generally. It’s probably the only manga I’m currently reading that I can (depending on the chapter) sometimes get away with not looking anything up and feel like I’m still getting a pretty full understanding. That said, I remember finding the first chapter hard (granted, at that point I don’t even think I’d fully covered N5 grammar), mainly due to casual speech and contractions that I hadn’t come across in ‘textbook japanese’ - but really be the end of the first volume it felt much more manageable. That’s the reason people pick it I think…the reason I’ve stuck with it and intend to read the whole series is that I find it really charming and funny. I’ve been reading the first two volumes with a few friends and we’re feeling up to trying a novel next (魔女の宅急便）…but we ended up deciding that we’re going to keep reading よつばと as well (switching back and forth week by week) because it’s been such a fun read. It probably just depends what works for you though - I know for example that Teasing Master Takagi-san is another popular ‘beginner’ choice - I tried that and couldn’t get past the first chapter as I found the characters really annoying - so a lot really does depend on personal taste!
. It’s actually easier in some ways for me, although more exhausting. As in, I can read a chapter of Takagi-san in half an hour and be fine but with Kiki I read one or two pages (one page takes maybe around half an hour for me) and be like, I’m done.
We started Book 2 a few weeks ago, but if you have any questions or feel like sharing your excitement/horror/confusion with others please feel free to use the chapter threads. We love talking about books here. 
