Japanese also shares some phonetic and syntactical similarities with Italian -- in particular, four Japanese vowels are also present (and common) in Italian, while [u] is also rather similar. Both Japanese and Italian also have
null subjects and a relatively free word order. Japanese is also mora-timed, which is similar to the syllable-timing (AKA machine-gun rhythm) in Italian. I believe French is also syllable-timed, and hence is closer to Japanese than English (which is stress-timed AKA morse-code rhythm) in this regard.
(Frankly, the stress-timing part of English is the hardest part of the language I'd found so far. Still can't get it right despite living in an English-speaking country for nearly a decade.)
That said, there are probably less overall similarities between French and Japanese then with English, so I agree with KyleGoetz that Japanese is probably going to be significantly harder for you to learn.