Pabappa wrote: ↑30 Jan 2018 05:08 but in practice, because the syllables are so simple, the vowels are spoken very quickly and the language paradoxically sounds like it consists mostly of dense consonant clusters. e.g. the English borrowing of Jp /sukoshi/ as "skosh". For this reason, all of my conlangs are consonant-strong.
Even though I love the sound of Japanese, I agree with you there. I'm not such a fan of the way the Japanese /u/ and /i/ are often pronounced as "silent vowels" in rapid speech. Then again, my introduction to Japanese was in songs and in Japanese singing, vowels are usually enunciated and it sounds much better than speech.
There's also a Korean and Japanese version of the song "Bo Peep" by T-ara. The song itself is kind of silly and repetitive, but as much as I like the original Korean version, when I heard the Japanese version, I was like "yep, this is why I love Japanese". At least I do think it's the best sounding language when sung.