Yeah bringbackthe80s but it's not really "western style" ... China, Korea, Vietnam all seem to get conversions done for their new joiners in a month or so. It's a uniquely Japanese problem.
There are plenty of guys contracting in vietnam, indo etc who would like to go to Japan for the relatively higher level of civilization and quality of life, but come on man taking a YEAR or more for a captain with 10,000 hours on type to get through training and get on line, is just insane.