I have not worked with Java in a long time but I seem to remember that most Java programs also accrue a good amount of dependencies and some of them have their own init routines.

That adds up, fast. No idea how is it nowadays, admittedly. Maybe a ton of optimization work was done.

> I have not worked with Java in a long time > No idea how is it nowadays, admittedly.

Yes, between Java 8 and modern java there were changes to the GC, startup time, JIT and probably more.

If you want, it java should now start pretty quickly.