Well, it's not like Japanese has nothing going for it as a language. There are a number of things that make Japanese easier to learn than several others.
1) Limited sounds: ~90% of the sounds that exist in Japanese are easily pronounced by an English speaker-- English just has a lot more diversity of sounds than Japanese. It's always Consonant + Vowel sound (and "nn" is the only consonant sound that ever ends a word), and the 5 vowel sounds are all standard in English. The only difficult noises to pronounce are "tsu" (believe it or not, the "t" in "tsunami" is not supposed to be silent), "fu" (which is actually not a hard f but halfway between "hu" and "fu"), and the r series-- ra ri ru re ro, rya ryu ryo (and that's just because you have to roll the r's like in Spanish; ry sounds are the most difficult for English speakers).
2) Lots of media. Japanese is probably the only language besides English with such a diversity of TV shows, websites, news, blogs, and other media. Add in video games, anime, comic books, dramas-- there is just tons and tons of media if you want to immerse; especially on the internet. I don't think French, German, or Spanish can come anywhere close to the diversity and ease of access of material.
For my own recommendations, I'd like to post some resources that I used a lot when studying (note, most of this stuff will be more useful to intermediate-advanced+ students, but it's probably still worth a look for beginners):
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Rikaichan http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/
GET THIS. You ABSOLUTELY want this, as it is amazing. Rikaichan lets you hover your mouse over any word in your browser and instantly have the definition, reading, etc pop up. It's just an incredible tool I can't imagine studying Japanese without. They also have an iphone ap, which is a browser with a built in dictionary.
tip: KINDLE also has a dictionary feature similar to the rikaichan ap. You do have to pay for the Japanese -> English dictionary and install it, but it's worth it. For me, using the Japanese->Japanese dictionary is also quite useful. Recently, reading Japanese books on the kindle is one of my hobbies/study methods.
tip 2: For people learning Chinese (or Korean) there's a similar tool called perapera
-Renshuu.org
http://www.renshuu.org/
This site has a lot of cool free resources, and I especially like the vocab quiz function. They have a LOT of different vocab sets to study from, including all the major beginner/intermediate texbooks like Genki and Intermediate Modern Japanese. I only found the site and used it when I was studying to pass the 1 Kyu (Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1), but it was key in my memorization of N1 vocab, and reviewing N2 vocab. There is vocab sets designed for each of the JLPT tests, all the way from the lowest N5 vocab, up to the highest N1 vocab. The N1 vocab alone has around 43 quizes each with about 45 vocab words. I found the online quizes fun enough to do though that it only took me about 3 months to get through all the lessons-- you just get addicted like a video game.
-Kansai ben
http://www.kansaiben.com/
So ben or 弁 refers to a dialect-- here, Kansai dialect. The western region of Kansai (including Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, etc.) is a counter pivot to Tokyo that simply has such a tremendous influence on Japanese culture as a whole. Ignoring Kansai culture is like ignoring half of what makes modern Japanese culture what it is. Learning Kansai dialect was incredibly useful for me in getting in the Japanese mindset-- remembering that in the past, western Japan was king at one time, and that the Japanese were historically not a united people, but split into several clans, regions, sects-- each with their own language. Japanese has a very standard form, but it also breaks away from that form a LOT. People's speaking styles differ tremendously, even if they're saying the same thing.
Slang, Polite speech (both honorific and humble), male v. female, old v. young, and differing based on context and who they're talking too-- you NEED a flexible attitude and a flexible ear for language. You have to make the intuitive leap that "shinee" has the same basic meanings as "shinai" and "itashikanemasu". You have to grasp at the different nuance when a woman ends a sentence with "wa" rising tone, v. a western Japanese man ending the sentence with "wa" falling tone. For me, studying Kansai ben did this--
It forced me to take a more flexible attitude towards Japanese, and make intuitive leaps. Example: understanding that "Yatte-mouta!" 「やってもうた！」in Kansai-ben was the same as "Yatte-shimatta!" 「やってしまった」in made it easier to perceive that "Yacchotta-kaja!" 「やっちょったかじゃ！」meant the same thing when hearing a person from Shikoku say it. Comparing methods of speaking makes your brain better at perceiving meaning even when the exact words are different but similar. It makes your understanding more organic. This helps TREMENDOUSLY when trying to master other forms of speaking-- like Keigo/Sonkei (polite Japanese), which IS critical to learning Japanese. Furthermore, the constant comparison between Kansai and Standard Japanese will force you to gain a more in-depth understanding of how standard grammar functions; it forces you to remember standard grammar well.
This site has tremendous resources for Kansai-ben study, grammar explanations, vocab list ("hokasu" means "suteru!" throw away!), and interviews with people from kansai of all age/gender groups to test your listening comprehension.
