In the middle of learning it, it really helps to have japanese friends.
Against the general consensus, reading doesn't appear to be that difficult after all, i'm starting to get my stuff together, but it takes time and practice, but i expect that everyone is aware of that.

I started because the english speaking folks keept ruining translations of books, games and motion pictures of all sorts. I couldn't care less about what you people do, but the issue i was facing was: The germans often just used the faulty english translation to translate it into german which sucks big time. I have no choice but to learn japanese if i want a version that makes sense.