Java projects growing way larger are likely just survivorship bias — python apps of similar sizes would just crumble, while java’s static typing gives enough stability against that.
I wasn’t disputing that java can grow larger codebases for various reasons: static typing and so on. What I am saying is that these systems do become impenetrable after a while and that magic that once is very welcome becomes the death arrow of obfuscation because while well meaning and useful at first, combined with a bunch of design patters and framworks it becomes a hot mess nobody wants to maintain.