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(4.18/5)Premier 4-panel comedy
This is an iconic series from the early-2000s, by the author who later wrote よつばと(Yotsuba). It's hilarious with very exaggerated characters, but more grounded than something like 日常 (Nichijou). There are a lot of jokes that took me some googling to fully understand as a non-native, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a plus in the language-learning department.
Most people probably know this from the anime which seems pretty popular, but I've watched surprisingly little anime for someone learning Japanese, so I just picked this up after loving Yotsubato. The 4 panel structure makes them feel pretty different though. That constant fracturing into short punch line setups gives this a different feel, somewhat more trivial and "about nothing." It's definitely making less of an impact on me so far, with jokes that feel more... obvious sometimes? But still, it's charming and cute frequently enough to be likable. I'm attached to plenty of characters and think they'll grow on me more in the next two. Could maybe do without the extremely creepy teacher, and some jokes just don't land for me at all in a way I wouldn't say was regularly true with Yotsubato, though.
On the language learning side I think this is in a weird spot -- the writing is simple, but with no furigana, particularly early learners might be turned off. Assuming balanced enough studies, I think someone with enough kanji comfort to not be constantly looking those up will be more than ok. I myself put it off a little in the past, then when I came back found it rather easy.
I must admit there's a not-insignificant amount of comics I didn't understand. I think, as another review alludes to, it's more cultural than a reading problem. A comic that I did get but could have easily failed to understand involved a character suddenly launching into a popular tongue twister (隣の客はよく柿食う客だ), so it's easy to see jokes I'm missing requiring some knowledge I don't have.
Later update: I didn't feel like reviewing the other volumes, but having finished the whole series, I did bump volume 3 to a full 5 stars. It creeps up on you. I'm not sure the steady quality increase is necessarily the writing actually getting that much better so much as just spending time soaking in the vibes across volumes leading to a level of character attachment where this manga is surprisingly touching, but it's a great journey in the end all the same.
Funny and easy to read
Overall, I thought it was entertaining. The characters are all goofballs, some of them obnoxiously so. The language was mostly simple and easy to understand. One of the characters speaks with Osaka-ben, so she was difficult to understand sometimes, but other than her, the other characters use a lot of simple phrases that would actually be used in real life (intermixed with ridiculous ones that should probably be avoided).
Yotsuba&! brought me to this series since they are by the same creator. If you like Yotsuba&!, odds are you will like this series as well.