I tried out Kenichi after seeing people comparing this and it, and honestly, I like this more. I couldn't tell you why, but this is just more entertaining to me personally. Totally understand slowing down the translation due to the lack in interest, though. You didn't even have to pick this up at all if you didn't want to.
There's something to be said for the intrinsic competence of this main character, for sure. In this manga, Eito demonstrates not just guts but also critical reasoning far beyond his formal education, and while he's no advanced combatant, he also has a physical constitution above a normal person's as well, leading the viewers to see the "promise" he shows from the getgo.
In HSDK, Kenichi lacked basically every trait you'd want him to have except kindness. People remember him as having guts when it counted but in reality, he was originally even more cowardly than Eito is here, and *constantly* tried to run away from even training early on. Meanwhile, Eito sees this insane world and is reacting to it like a proper tsukkomi but hasn't seriously said "get me out of here" since the first few chapters.
The hook at the beginning of Kenichi was basically just the ridiculously broken Masters he trained under. And Miu's boobs. But, you know. Mostly the masters. Having read all of Kenichi, I wouldn't say I overall like this series "more" yet, but I do think it shows more promise. If this goes on for long enough, I look forward to what should be a much more natural evolution of Eito into a competent secret agent, contrasting with Kenichi's constant hellish nonsense training to try to push him far beyond the bounds of the below-average human he originally was.