I went as a Monbusho scholar in the period 2004 - 2009 and this is not the case anymore. Nowadays you spend a lot of time filling forms and getting access to basic services like cellphones or Internet. They do give you around ¥160K these days...
A few years back, I was to go to Brazil on scholarship. Last minute, the US university mentioned they paid the money one month in...yet one has to pay at the start and Brazilian uni starts one month earlier than in US. Catch-22. Four months of prep, crossing T's and dotting I's and it all went down the drain.
