@chaoticnote If you're talking about how that's not really a lot of money and he'll have to learn how to budget real damn fast or he won't be able to cover his rent and shit for the entirety of his time at college, failure could be the point. Throw him into the deep end, let him see what the cost of living is like for a while just with their little buffer they gave him, and then he can get a job if he realizes he hasn't budgeted well enough to last even a year. Learn the value of a yen the hard way and then work for the difference as needed, maybe transition into leaving that money from his parents as emergency funds.
If you meant that more along the lines of they set him up for failure because a million yen is a lot and he'll never have to learn how to budget it... that's only like 9,600 USD. His rent alone could be something like 900 USD a month for just a single room apartment? Depends, not really sure what rent is like in his specific area, but if he's close enough to Tokyo it's probably not all that much lower than 700-900 range. That's like 8,400 to 10,800 USD a year for his rent, possibly covering his utilities as well so there's that at least. But he's gotta eat, too, and might be paying his own bills on other stuff like the cell phone.