I have studied four languages: French, Japanese, Thai, and currently Spanish. I think Japanese has a reputation for being difficult, but it really is not for the following reasons:
1) It is not tonal like Thai or Chinese. If you are speaking regular standard Japanese and especially if you are female, you can make a flat intonation and it will sound fine.
2) Because the Japanese like to be more indirect than we in the US are, there are a lot of redundancies and hesitations when they speak. This gives you more time to concentrate on understanding the key content words. And when speaking, if you add a lot of those redundant little words, you will sound as if you are more fluent than you actually are!
3) The pronunciation is quite regular, with consonants paired with vowels as with Spanish. One of the only hard sounds for us Americans is their letter "r" and the dipthong "Ryo" or "kyo" as in Tokyo which most Americans say wrong (note: I'm not sure if I used the word dipthong correctly -- what I mean is two sounds sliding together)
4) Granted, the writing is complicated because of the Chinese kanji that they mix with their alphabet; but the alphabet is easy to learn and it is actually fun to learn the kanji -- it is like drawing -- and since they are based on pictures that combine with each other, they are not too difficult to remember.
So please if you are interested in Japanese culture, do not be afraid to learn the language. It is not as difficult as people say it is!