I’ve heard that apparently, Japanese pronunciation is simpler to pick up (anime, games, etc). when you hear it spoken. As in, when foreigners learn it: they find that easier to listen to than spoken Mandarin since there’s no tones in Japanese (rather pitch accent, but it’s not the same as it could be understood based on context even if said wrong) while Mandarin places a huge emphasis on tones that change the definition completely.
Also, how does spoken Japanese sound to the ear when you either watch subtitled anime when you compare that to anime being dubbed in Mandarin? I know that one of my friends watches Asian dramas and prefers either Japanese or Korean audio over Mandarin for some reason (I’d assume it has to do with accent and how a language sounds when spoken). Is Mandarin dubbed anime even good or does it sound bad?
Japanese is way easier. Mandarin is tonal and if you don’t have an ear for it, it is maddening to talk to natives and they can’t even guess what you’re trying to say because you can’t tell that you’re using the rising time instead of the flat high tone.
Personally, I also find the tone restrictive since atonal languages can use musicality in speech as another dimension in emphasis while that would muddy meaning in tonal languages.
That said, Japanese is hard in other ways, but those hurdles are when you get closer to fluency