, is one of the first '' shōnen'' magazines published by
Hakubunkan
is a Japanese publisher, publishing company founded in 1887 amidst the wealth and military prosperity of the Meiji era. Hakubunkan entered the publishing arena by printing a nationalist magazine as well as expanding into printing, advertising, pa ...
specializing in
children's literature
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
, published from 1895 to 1914. ''Shōnen Sekai'' was created as a part of many magazine created by Hakubunkan that would connect with many different parts of society in Japan. Sazanami Iwaya created the ''Shōnen Sekai'' magazine after he wrote ''Koganemaru'' a modern piece of children's literature. After Japan had a war with Russia, a female adaptation of ''Shōnen Sekai'' was created named ''
Shōjo Sekai
was one of the first '' shōjo'' magazines in Japan. It was published by Hakubunkan beginning in 1906 and was initially edited by renowned children′s author , better known by the pen name .sugoroku
(literally 'double six') refers to two different forms of a Japanese board game: ''ban-sugoroku'' (盤双六, 'board-sugoroku') which is similar to western tables games like Backgammon, and ''e-sugoroku'' (絵双六, 'picture-sugoroku') which is ...
boards and baseball cards. ''Shōnen Sekai'' was mentioned in many American books but no series were actually translated.
History
Japanese publisher Hakubunkan was aiming to create a large variety of magazines that would appeal to many different parts of society: ''Taiyō'', ''Bungei Club'', and ''Shōnen Sekai'' were the magazines created and all debuted in 1895 (the Meiji era). On the cover of the first issue of ''Shōnen Sekai'' it pictured both Crown Prince Munehito, and the other
Empress Jingū
was a legendary Japanese empress who ruled as a regent following her husband's death in 200 AD. Both the ''Kojiki'' and the ''Nihon Shoki'' (collectively known as the ''Kiki'') record events that took place during Jingū's alleged lifetime. Leg ...
who was conquering Sankan (three ancient kingdoms of
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
). Inside of the issue were stories about these matters and
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
, otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...
's raid on Korea in 1590. The pioneer of modern Japanese children's media Sazanami Iwaya wrote the first modern children's story ''Koganemaru'' in 1891 and also started ''Shōnen Sekai'' in 1895.Shunrō Oshikawa invented the "adventure manga" genre, with his works being published many times in both ''Shōnen Sekai'' and '' Shōnen Club'' and compiled into
tankōbon
is the Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
format. In the middle of the Sino-Japanese War ''Shōnen Sekai'' featured many stories based on war, or acts of bravery upon war. After the Sino-Japanese War, ''
Shōjo Sekai
was one of the first '' shōjo'' magazines in Japan. It was published by Hakubunkan beginning in 1906 and was initially edited by renowned children′s author , better known by the pen name . Even before ''Shōnen Sekai'' debuted, Hakubunkan created special magazine issue that would focus on the Sino-Japanese War.
Features
The ''Shōnen Sekai'' magazine had many add-ins such as
sugoroku
(literally 'double six') refers to two different forms of a Japanese board game: ''ban-sugoroku'' (盤双六, 'board-sugoroku') which is similar to western tables games like Backgammon, and ''e-sugoroku'' (絵双六, 'picture-sugoroku') which is ...
boards. The sugoroku ''Shōnen Sekai Kyōso Sugoroku'' was originally produced as a supplement to the ''Shōnen Sekai'' magazine and is currently seen at the Tsukiji Sugoroku Museum in Japan. Also packs of baseball cards were featured in the magazine in a February 1915 issue of ''Shōnen Sekai''. Players that were included into the pack were Fumio Fujimura, Makoto Kozuru, Shigeru Chiba and
Hideo Fujimoto
(also known as Hideo Nakagami) (May 10, 1918 – April 26, 1997) was a Japanese baseball pitcher. He holds the Japanese records for lowest career ERA (1.90) and seasonal ERA (0.73), as well as best all-time winning percentage (.697). During his ...
. Many manga and children's literature were featured in ''Shōnen Sekai''. An example of this was Iwaya Sazanami (the creator of ''Shōnen Sekai'')'s ''Shin Hakken-den'' which had the concept of rewarding the good and punishing the evil a common theme to children's fiction in the 20th century. ''Shin Hakken-den'' was based on '' Nansō Satomi Hakkenden'' from the
Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
by
Takizawa Bakin
(), a.k.a. (, 4 July 1767 – 1 December 1848), was a Japanese novelist of the Edo period. Born (), he wrote under the pen name (). Later in life he took the pen name (). Modern scholarship generally refers to him as , or just as n. He is ...
. ''Shōnen Sekai'' carried many stories based on war, and acts of bravery upon war written by Hyōtayu Shimanukiyōdayu - In ''Shōnen Sekai'' some titles were also translated from other languages, for example: ''Deux ans de vacances'' (an obscure French novel from the 1800s) was translated to Japanese by Morita Shiken under the title and ''
The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, ...
'' was also published in ''Shōnen Sekai''.
''Shōnen Sekai'' media in the English language
''Shōnen Sekai'' was mentioned various times in many English books. In the book ''The New Japanese Women: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan'' mentioned ''Shōnen Sekai'' in the notes to chapter 3 as one of many magazines that Hakubunkan made to relate to different parts of society. ''Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Asia: From the Taiping Rebellion to the Vietnam War'' also mentioned ''Shōnen Sekai'' as a popular magazine of that time, with an additional mention to ''Shōjo Sekai'', its female equivalent. ''Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii'' mentioned ''Shōnen Sekai'' as just a publication of Hakubunkan. In the book ''No Sword to Bury: Japanese Americans in Hawai'i During World War II'' had mention of Shimanuki Hyotayu who writes about immigration matters in ''Shōnen Sekai''. ''Shōnen Sekai'' was also mentioned in both ''The Similitude of Blossoms: A Critical Biography of Izumi Kyōka (1873–1939), Japanese Novelist and Playwright'' and ''Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period''.
The closest thing to an actual series published in English was ''
The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, ...
'' which was originally in the English language. ''The Jungle Book'' was published in the United States by
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...
in 1894 and is currently being published by them in London.
Reception and legacy
''Shōnen Sekai'' was one of the most popular children's magazines of its day. Many other children's magazines of that time had very low circulations and were very short lived. ''Shōnen Sekai'' was the first of its kind and ran continuously from 1895 to 1914. "''Shōnen sekai'' educated and entertained at least two generations of Japanese children"
Modeled on ''Shōnen Sekai'' Choe Nam-seon founded a magazine, ''Shonen'', in Korea in 1908.