Sazanami Iwaya created the Shōnen Sekai magazine after he wrote Koganemaru a modern piece of children's literature.

[1][2][3] On the cover of the first issue of Shōnen Sekai it pictured both Crown Prince Munehito, and the other Empress Jingū who was conquering Sankan (three ancient kingdoms of Korea).

[6] Even before Shōnen Sekai debuted, Hakubunkan created special magazine issue that would focus on the Sino-Japanese War.

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.

[3] 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.

[11] 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.

This was certainly the official position of Hakubunkan as can be seen in Tsubotani Yoshiyoro,[15]Modeled on Shōnen Sekai Choe Nam-seon founded a magazine, Shonen, in Korea in 1908.