Welll I started reading the "Freezing" manga and I have to say:
Tig Bitties. No seriously if any of you guys thought HSDK was bad with fanservice: shit this manga has full blown nudity at time. At first I though it was going a Claymore route however its more akin to Sekirei now that I look at it; it doesn't have the Pokémon with hot chicks aspect though so that's a plus.
Bleach- Nice little sibling moment that allows Byakuya to be cool while also retaining Rukia's badassness. Unlike, say, Monet vs Tashigi I get the impression Rukia could have won without help.
OP- Not really seeing the negative opinion on this one. Trebol shows himself as a credible threat with some hidden depths and Sugar proves to be sort of a badass. Robin is clever as always and the only thing I disliked was Usopp continuing to be a coward.
Naruto- Obito is my favorite character so getting to see him be strong is not a bad thing...but the chapter spent way too much time with Madara talking about stuff we mostly already know about. It is blatantly killing time that could be better spent explaining how Obito can fight off Black Zetsu's control.
Also reading a series called Dragon Rioting. Imagine Kenichi but more shameless and actually pretty funny. Warning: An abundance of fanservice awaits all who enter here...
I'll just do a single strength and weakness for each because effort.
Oda:
Strength - Heart. OP has the best and most likeable characters easily, the most unironic and unashamedly heartfelt moments and is just all around fun. Yet it can be just as tragic and sad.
Weakness - Pacing. His arcs take a long time to build up.
Kishi:
Strength - Nothing really comes to mind about him at this time.
Weakness - He drags things out and stalls a lot.
Kubo:
Strength - The first 200 chapters.
Weakness - Everything else.
This is too much effort. Screw this.
From a heavily edited series of IMs to Aura.
ODA
Strengths: His sense of foreshadowing, he can foreshadow shit from hundreds of ****ing chapters ago subtly and then reveal what it foreshadowed without it coming off as an asspull. His world is IMHO the most original and inspired, fantastic yet executed so well that it is almost believable. He also tends to be best at avoiding dumbass "Only the author can save them now" scenarios, when his protagonists win, they win fairly and largely through their own effort. He knows his core themes, which are simple, yet consistent, I can't really recall the work breaking them. His characters are also highly physically varied, which is good. Oh, and Oda can wank really versatile uses out of really simple powersets, which lends itself well to interesting fights and shit.
Weaknesses: Sometimes, his jokes just aren't ****ing funny. Nephthys touched on this in another thread, but his need to have people hammily explain the joke is more grating than amusing. Also, honestly, sometimes his art can just be /ugly/, unappealing in ways it wasn't intended to be. Similarly, the whole avoidance of OP villains who give no ****s about anything is a double-edged sword, especially since the timeskip. The foes the Straw Hats fight are just so outclassed it isn't even interesting to read about. Oh, and some arcs introduce so many characters it is impossible to give a **** about all of them. The hammy as **** nature of the setting also doesn't lend itself well to drama much of the time. Sometimes the drama is well-executed, like the aftermath of Ace's death. But Ace's death PROPER, well, that was just funny. And it wouldn't have been, had Luffy's face not been the dumbest ****ing thing I've ever seen. Also, dat pacing.
KISHIMOTO
Strengths: When he ****ing WANTS to, his fights are very interesting and entertaining to read. The powersets of the characters are varied and versatile enough to lead to fights that don't depend on who has the biggest laser, but who can use their abilities in a more clever fashion. His pacing is admittedly also probably the best between the three, it's not perfect, but the only really noticeable crawl I can recall is the current war arc. His characters also usually are distinct enough in appearance from each other to not confuse the two. It isn't to the same extent as Oda's is, but the designs of the characters are not as fantastical. Also, the supporting cast is in many ways very entertaining or endearing, with characters like A and B being standout examples, or really all of the Kage except (Ironically) the current hokage.
Weaknesses: YOU NEVER ****ING SEE HALF OF THESE CHARACTERS FOR MOST OF THE MANGA. They've gotten the occasional day in the spotlight, but they never really /do/ anything. Neji died. Whoopty doo, he hasn't done shit since he fought Kidomaru. Hinata only shows up to get her **** beaten out of her back. Also, the manga suffers seriously from "overpowered bad guy" syndrome, with no hope in sight for the heroes. Asspulls abound, which you know my opinions on. Also, a degraded art style. It is now far more plain than it was, and rarely is it drawn with any detail, which is a ****ing shame because I know that Kishi is capable of a great amount of detail in his art. Recall that old shot of Kyuubi with Madara fighting Hashirama. Oh and of course many of the fights these days amount to DBZ bullshit that is just so uninspiring. Now there is nothing wrong with DBZ-inspired combat, if you can pull it off, but Kishi evidentally can't. Not many people know this, but it is REALLY HARD to draw that shit, the mangaka of Buso Renkan commented on it when he was shocked how difficult it was to draw even a parody of DBZ-style fights for his series, and trying to do so rekindled his respect for Toriyama. And of course, the mangled, horribly molested themes. My real problem with Kishi is that I know he can do better than this, but for some reason he doesn't.
KUBO
Humor. No really, I find Bleach to be the funniest of the three overall. OP can get some laughs, but Kubo tends to induce less groans when he tries to be funny and is able to be lulzy consistently enough. Kubo also writes a really strong supporting cast. While not everyone is likeable and some are even shitty, most of the Espada were okay, some were really cool, a lot of the supporting Shinigami are great, and the new quincy villains are awesome. Also, it must be said that Bach is probably my favorite of all the big bads of the three, being far more compelling than Blackbeard or Madara, and with a more interesting place in the setting. Kubo writes the most interesting mythology of the setting as well. Kubo is heavily influenced by Shintoism and Buddhism, and his setting's mythology reflects that. I once scoffed at rocks having souls, but apparently that is some legitimate shit in Shintoism, and the recycling of souls that serves as the cosmological crux of Bleach paints an interesting, if fundamentally depressing, picture of the setting. Kubo probably also writes competent, cool women the best and most consistently. Also, his work has a moral ambiguity I find lacking in the other two, for the most part.
Weaknesses: Asspulls, asspulls everywhere. Unsatisfying conclusions to supposed to be climactic fights, hyped characters being killed off-panel, an apparent distaste for backgrounds. Everyone looks the ****ing same. Seriously, Tsukishima and Ginjo are just Aizen with different hair styles. His pacing can get pretty shitty. The fact that he decided to actually write the Deicide arc. His boring as ****, straightforward fights. Zommari syndrome, taking characters who seem cool, like the aforementioned Zommari or guys like Giriko, and then making them hammy and retarded. Maybe other shit I forget, but it's a mess
Oda:
Strength - Dramatic moments. He can do incredible ones. Creative art- love it or hate it, he pulls off some impressive stuff. Fun, it usually manages a sense of fun even when things aren't going well.
World building.
Weakness - Pacing, pacing, and pacing. Almost every arc could use some trimming- even the good ones, we don't love *all* of Water 7/Enies Lobby, we love the key bits. Many of the minor arcs take 3 volumes when they could take 3/4ths of one and lose almost nothing. The desire to put a long chase scene in almost every arc, and they are almost always the weakest part. Death doesn't exist outside of flashbacks and the part 1 finale, sometimes to the point of absurdity.
Character development, or rather lack thereof. Post-skip, everyone look liked they advanced, but Usopp actually seems to have backpeddles a bit, and Sanji definitely did. Also, juggling the crew. Once it got past a certain size, a lot of the crew did nothing but throw in an attack or two during group fights, and a joke or two during conversations, for arcs at a time. Has had some issues with treatment of females, who tend to get smaller roles, are underrepresented in groups (one female each per Supernova, Warlords, and Kaido. Supernova female is shown rapidly defeated), 'fanservice' bits are sometimes creepy, and some attitudes of other characters are kinda bad.
Kishi:
Strength - Best pacing of the big three easily by far. Least constrained by the arc structure, most willing to experiment and do non-standard events that don't fit the mold, by far the most character development. Great, large cast that one wants to see more. Even minor characters contribute in real ways fairly often. Even the big fights usually remember to use trickery, misdirection, and that other ninja stuff. Death is not overused, but exists. It's not teased constantly, and there are some real dramatic ones. Not much fanservice.
Finally, worldbuilding, worldbuilding, worldbuilding, the richest of the settings.
Weakness - Experimenting with structure more means backfires. Pacing, being better than OP and Bleach in it is faint praise and it still is slower than FT or Negima. Sometimes his foreshadowing was so far back many forget about it (there's a lot of cries of plotholes that aren't... but "this was foreshadowing or mentioned twice, once 200 chapters ago, once 50," is still an issue). And, I will say, recently, he's had a tendency to add event onto event without break in between- we have *not* had one drawn-out fight for the last 120 chapters, we've had 3-4 large fights against different characters that blur into each other, which, while it's not the same as dragging something out, can still be tiring as heck. Also, while he gets breaking up action a bit, he tends to break it up with flashbacks and talking, then back to the same action, which, yea. The more minor ninja tricks, one gets so used to it doesn't register as unexpected as much any more.
Great large cast you want to see *more*, and while he's actually the least main character centric, this one feels like it deserves to be an ensemble piece the most.
Kubo:
Strength - Making characters' personalities come through in even brief encounters, creative powers, dramatic reveals. The very early, much more nuanced human world stuff. The chemistry between Rukia and Ichigo. Some of the supporting characters are really good.
Weakness - Character's uniqueness can often get flattened over time (Ichigo starts out smart and a bit pragmatic. Neither applies later, he's a pure lead-by-his-heart character). Side-cast way more interesting. Predictable plots. True dragged-out fights without *anything* to break them up, except sometimes cutting to other dragged out fights, and in some cases not even that. Incredibly predictable fights, no-one has a sense of tactics. Strength of characters bounces around to fit the current fight. Relies too heavily on introducing a cast of new characters every arc, can't help but leaving many feel like re-treads.
Only the strongest characters at a battle mattering, making the creativity of abilities less important. Sometimes forget old aspects of world building (hollows eat souls and when killed are merely processed to Soul Society, why is 'sparing' them suddenly a reasonable thing to do? Also, I think he's forgotten most of his characters are supposed to be spirits. Hell's completely dropped off the radar as well). Good characters cannot die, often to the point of absurdity, with only two exceptions, one of which had almost no lines.
Hiro Mashima:
Strength- Pacing, actual good pacing! Strong cast, not completely centered around the hero. Willing to give other characters important wins, and tactics matter, teamwork even more-so. True ensemble cast. Erza Scarlet. Consistent writing, with only a few weak storylines, and good pacing means you tend not to be stuck in those too long. Fanservice is, uniquely in these four, somewhat balanced between the genders, and characters can have a mature attitude about it.
Doesn't fake out death constantly by pretending every big wound is fatal (it sometimes has an apparent-death-then-reality-discovered-next-chapter, but it doesn't try and sell you on "No, really, this one is reeeeal!" like Bleach).
Weaknesses- Consistent means it doesn't quite reach the highs of the others as often either. One of the weak parts was at the end of a large arc. Fanservice can be a bit much (especially one recent scene), as can the 'Lucy in trouble' parts. Fairly predictable, you won't get too many surprises on how things resolve, it's more about enjoying the ride.
Ken Akamatsu:
Strengths- Action, pacing, plotting, character development, large casts that all develop, mixes genres well, somewhat balanced fan service. Manages to go an entire shonen series without death-teasing once.
In my opinion, solidly the best writer of all five I've mentioned.
Weaknesses- Better at least tolerate the 'harem' genre, because it's a genre who's elements he uses mixed in. Series can take a little time to gear up to speed. Rushed end of Negima, though hopefully it's just that one.