[Tsuwabuki]

In many ways, once memorised, I tend to think Japanese/Chinese is actually faster to read. You also know that in Japanese there are only so many permutations of sounds, whereas in English, we have as many phonic rules as we do words in the accepted vocabulary. Once kanji is memorised, ideographic recognition kicks in and reading speed improves over a roman alphabet represented language, especially one that has been so... mixed is perhaps a polite term.

Honestly, I think English is quite complex when written, because even native level speakers, even people like me, English teachers, with degrees in teaching English, still are not automatically sure how to pronounce a word when we encounter it for the first time. Sometimes we can make educated guesses, but we're still not positive until we look at a pronunciation key. In Japanese, that's never an issue.