Japanese is an easier language to learn for a foreigner due to the use of things such as okurigana. And yes, Japanese still requires you to remember a lot of kanji in order to read it fluently.

Harajuku and Harakiri have two totally different meanings. To visually see this, it will help to enable Japanese language support on your browser.

Harajuku in its kanji (borrowed Chinese characters) form is 原宿 meaning 'meadow lodging'

Harakiri in it's kanji+okurigana (Japanese syllabic characters connected to a word that uses kanji) form is 腹切り meaning 'stomach cutting'

Harakiri means literally 'cutting the belly'. It is a colloquial and considered somewhat vulgar term for 'Seppuku, a ritual suicide by self-disembowelment on a sword; practiced by samurai men in the traditional Japanese society. Women samurai needed special approval for committing seppuku. The practice of committing seppuku at the death of one's master is known as tsuifuku though the ritual is basically the same.

Seppuku ( lit."belly-cutting") is better known in English as harakiri and is written with the same kanji (traditional characters) as seppuku but in reverse order with an okurigana.