Is Japanese Hard to Learn? An Honest Answer
The honest answer: Japanese is category v (among the hardest for english speakers). The US Foreign Service Institute estimates about 2,200 classroom hours to reach solid working proficiency — but "hard" depends far more on how you study than on the language itself.
Why it is easier than its reputation
A few things work in your favour with Japanese:
• simple, consistent pronunciation — far fewer sounds than English
• no grammatical gender, no plurals, and no articles to worry about
• endless engaging material (anime, drama, games) once you can follow it
The genuinely hard parts
No sugar-coating — these are the parts that take real time:
• three writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and thousands of kanji)
• grammar that works in almost the opposite order to English
• levels of politeness that change how you speak
The fastest way through it
Japanese is a long road mostly because of reading — which is exactly what a synced transcript with furigana fixes, letting you get the listening input long before you can read unaided.
That is the whole idea behind learning by listening and reading: fill your hours with Japanese you can actually understand, a little harder than is comfortable, and the "hard" parts stop being rules you memorize and start being patterns you recognize.