Another friend of ours spoke fluent German and had a good job offer in Austria. It was so complicated to get a visa both she and the company eventually gave up.
Japan wasn't too bad, though it seemed complicated at the time. I applied for a visa in early September and finally got it in late November.
Their bureaucracy was kind enough to actually let me start working in EARLY November as long as the company promised not to pay me until the visa was actually issued later in the month. They also added that the company could pay me before if they called it "seikatsuhi" (living expenses) rather than salary.
Nice; here in the US we’d call it a “stipend”...not “pay”.