Jars are also just zip files, so you can prepend a shell script without impacting the ability for Java/zip to decompress. Add a shell script to run Java on its self and you have a executable (though not a true native elf/mach binary).

It’s not much worse than a standard dynamically linked binary at that point. You just need a JVM on the system. Combined with the AOT compiler (as it stabilizes) makes Java applications more competitive with standard binaries.