I'm a JRPG noob myself. With the exception being the Pokemon games when I was younger. I tried to get into them earlier this year with a bunch of games. First was Chrono Trigger. Fucking awesome. Then I played Persona 4 Golden and was fucking blown away. Then after that I tried FFX HD for my first FF game, and while it was okay, I stopped playing it for large chunks of time. Still haven't beaten it. I feel like P4G has spoiled me on any and all JRPG's. It was that good to me.
Also still have Chrono Cross to go through. I know most don't like it more than Trigger, but there's a small minority that do. Interested in giving it a go at some point though. Soundtrack is amazing.