Guess what I'm trying to get at is I would figure it's simpler to make a romance plot than an action/adventure plot. It's rare you go into a deep, introspective combing of details with romances, mainly cause they don't last long being it's more episodic like EmDee said.
For new series, I mostly agree with you. Shudan is the best overall, and the rest are all about equal. Dr Stone is probably the best currently, but I can't quite forgive the terrible start that would have got any other series cancelled just yet.
As I said, romances are generally full of details, many scenes are more meaningful than the average action/adventure reader can interpret in a single page. I don't consider them episodic per se, but I get to this in a minute, what's important is: how episodic is easier? Once you start a non-episodic series the ideas will start to flow well, the story starts to create itself because it is the logical way things will flow. Episodic, on the other hand, you have to do this every week, create another story and make it interesting, WHILE keeping a logical order in that because the chapters has a connection, still.
It's not like the romance elements aren't clear though. The author usually gives us a clear depiction of when someone is attracted to someone, which leads to having circumstances to cause either one or both to let the other realize their feelings for them. Even in its setting and genre I wouldn't called it more meaningful than say All Might barely being able to tell Deku all the truth of his incoming death, instead stopping himself short of finishing his sentence. The episodes connect, Ogata and Nari kissed awkwardly and now they have awkward moments in the episodes going forward. Nari helping the teacher clean her room has now led to him going over there anytime she needs him to clean something and in turn she'll help him study. But I can't see how making an episodic arc is harder than making a long winding arc. It's why we see some long running arcs (4th ninja war, Thousand Year Blood war, Dressrosa to some) drop in quality once it hits the middle towards the ending cause most new arcs start off great, but it's difficult to continue that greatness over 100 plus chapters. Bottom line, if I could participate in making the storyboard for the Simpsons (episodic) or make the storyboard for Justice League (long arching) I would take Simpsons any day of the week.
It's just such a weird thing, because Horikoshi is actually better presenting his female characters compared to Naruto and One Piece so far. They are capable to fight, being useful AND having different/colorful designs, yet till this point, many of 'em got the short end of the stick regarding screen time. But to be fair, many other characters, who are male are in a similiar situation, because there are so many characters to begin with. I think, I wouldnt even complain about this so much now, if we didnt have in the same arc 4 heroines who we didnt see for months by now.
At least for me, I think it's to deal with Muzan and his motives not clear yet. We got foreshadowng about the blue spider lily before this arc started so I'll wait for that. Also, more importantly, I feel that characters like Zenitsu can use more development and maybe Inosuke; Tanjirou's characterization/development is good but the other two can use more work, especially Zenitsu with development. Nezuko is just there most of the time too.
We get it, you love your romcoms and cute girls. No need to get so defensive over something that wasn't even an insult. I only said that romcoms are mostly episodic in nature. I made no comment on the quality of WNL (which I've said before that I enjoy) or the romcom genre.
I think episodic comedy is definitely one of the more difficult things to write because you have to create new jokes quite often, which Saiki does really well, and there aren't a lot of cliches you can rely on either because an overused joke won't be funny. It's not like battle manga or romcoms where there are a pool of cliches to pull from when you need a plot line (or whole chapter in romcoms case). Big respect for Asou-sensei.
Judging from the latest translated chapter, it's ending pretty soon. I wouldn't get my hopes up. I'm sad about it too.
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There hasn't really been that one "oh shit" arc yet like the Zabuza arc in Naruto or the Arlong arc in One Piece. The spider family arc was good, but it wasn't amazing. Also the points that Studiopolis covered, especially the character development. What's supposed to be the "main trio" seems more like "Tanjirou, oh and Inosuke and Zenitsu are there too".