If you name the JDK home directory as "bin" such that ${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java ends up looking like /some/where/bin/bin/java, the launcher will fail to start:

$ ./bin/bin/java -version
Error: could not find libjava.so
Error: Could not find Java SE Runtime Environment.

$ cd bin
$ ./bin/java -version
Error: could not find libjava.so
Error: Could not find Java SE Runtime Environment.

Even setting JAVA_HOME explicitly doesn't help

$ cd /some/where/bin
$ env JAVA_HOME=$(pwd) ./bin/java
Error: could not find libjava.so
Error: Could not find Java SE Runtime Environment.