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?
That tracks with my experience. I visited Japan but knew minimal Japanese (pretty much just 有り難う御座います) and everyone was very friendly and helpful, and seemed pleased the limit of my Japanese was at least something polite.
I feel like one difference is a friendly Mandarin speaker would be less likely to try to correct me if I made a mistake and more likely to try to just interpret what I’m trying to say. I wonder if some of that comes from the possibility of misunderstandings from a tonal language.