Shonen Sekai
Encyclopedia
, is one of the first shōnen
Shonen
The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...

magazines published by Hakubunkan
Hakubunkan
is a Japanese 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, paper manufacturing, and related businesses, becoming one of...

 specializing in children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

, 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
Shojo 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...

. Also some children's books were translated to Japanese and published in Shōnen Sekai. The magazine had many features too, such as sugoroku
Sugoroku
refers to two different forms of Japanese board game, one similar to western backgammon and the other similar to western Snakes and ladders.Sugoroku plays identically to backgammon , except for the following differences:...

 boards and baseball cards. Shōnen Sekai was mentioned in many American novels 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
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...

 era). On the cover of the first issue of Shōnen Sekai it pictured both Crown Prince Munehito, and the other Empress Jingu who was conquering Sankan (three ancient kingdoms of Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

). Inside of the issue were stories about these matters and Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
was a daimyo warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period. He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle...

'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
Shunro Oshikawa
, was a Japanese author, journalist and editor, best known as a pioneer of science fiction.-Education and early career:While studying law at Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō at the turn of the century, Oshikawa published Kaitō Bōken Kidan: Kaitei Gunkan , the story of an armoured, ram-armed submarine in a...

 invented the "adventure manga" genre, with his works being published many times in both Shōnen Sekai and Shōnen Club and compiled into tankōbon
Tankobon
, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

 format. In the middle of the Sino-Japanese War
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...

 Shōnen Sekai featured many stories based on war, or acts of bravery upon war. After the Sino-Japanese War, Shōjo Sekai
Shojo 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...

was created as a sister magazine geared towards the female audience. 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
Sugoroku
refers to two different forms of Japanese board game, one similar to western backgammon and the other similar to western Snakes and ladders.Sugoroku plays identically to backgammon , except for the following differences:...

 boards. The sugoroku Shōnen Sekai Kyōso Sugoroku was originally produced as a supplement to the Shōnen Sekai magazine and his 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
Fumio Fujimura
was a Japanese right-handed pitcher for the Osaka Tigers in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball.In the 1933 National High School Baseball Championship, Fujimura's team reached the quarterfinals but his opponent Masao Yoshida pitched a shutout in the game. In the final of 1934 National High School...

, Makoto Kozuru, Shigeru Chiba and Hideo Fujimoto
Hideo Fujimoto
was a Japanese baseball pitcher. He holds the Japanese records for lowest career ERA and seasonal ERA . At Aomori Stadium, in he pitched the first perfect game in NPB history....

. 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
Nanso Satomi Hakkenden
is a Japanese 106 volume epic novel by Kyokutei Bakin. Written over a period of nearly thirty years and published from 1814 to 1842, Bakin had gone blind before finishing the tale, and the final parts were dictated to his daughter-in-law Michi to be transcribed...

from the Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 by Takizawa Bakin
Kyokutei Bakin
was a late Japanese Edo period gesaku author best known for works such as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden and Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki.-Life:He was born as , he wrote under the pen name which is a pun as the kanji may also be read as Kuruwa de Makoto meaning a man who is truly devoted to the courtesans of...

. Shōnen Sekai carried many stories based on war, and acts of bravery upon war written by Hyōtayu Shimanuki [Hyōdayu -]. 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
The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...

was also published in Shōnen Sekai.

Shōnen Sekai media in the English language

Shōnen Sekai was mentioned various times in many English novels. In the novel 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. The New Japanese Women was originally in English, written by Barbara Hamill Sato and published by Duke University Press
Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher of books and journals, and a unit of Duke University. It publishes approximately 120 books annually and more than 40 journals, as well as offering five electronic collections...

. 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. The book was published by Greenwood Publishing Group
Greenwood Publishing Group
Greenwood Publishing Group is an educational publisher and is part of ABC-CLIO. It publishes reference works under its Greenwood Press imprint, and scholarly, professional, and general interest books under Praeger Publishers...

. Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii mentioned Shōnen Sekai as just a publication of Hakubunkan. In the novel 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
The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...

which was originally in the English language. The Jungle Book was published in the United States by Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...

in 1894 and is currently being published by them in London.

Reception

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 continuesly from 1895 to 1914. "Shōnen sekai educated and entertained at least two generations of Japanese children"

External links

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