The difference is that Japanese people don't give a fuck about learning English. Why would they? The only reason we gaijin are interested in learning Japanese is so that we can read manga and play visual novel, not because we admire the Japanese culture so much or some shit...though that's what all the weaboos say when you ask them why they're learning Japanese.
I applied to do japanese at a university because I wanted to do a joint honours with french and an asian language. korean is not really used that much outside korea, chinese is very useful but ridiculous number of characters and annoying tones. Japanese seemed like a good middle and hopefully will open up jobs in asia and america for me looking in advertisements there seems to be a lot of jobs for people with a good level of fluency in japanese or french.