>>9
German pronounciation is pretty much identical to Japanese, so as a native speaker of German you will generally have no problems speaking Japanese.
As for the characters, I thought learning them was very easy and relaxing. I mastered the Jouyou Kanji in about 3 years with ease. I guess that very much depends on personal talent, though.
Japanese grammar is interesting and I agree that it gets harder the further you progress but on the whole, no big deal either in my opinion.
I didn't feel mastering Japanese was particularly hard, not any more so than English.