Maru (, born 24 May 2007) is a male Scottish Straight cat in Japan who has become popular on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. Videos featuring Maru have been viewed over 535 million times, and at one point held the

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

for the most YouTube video views of an individual animal. Maru has been described as the "most famous cat on the internet".

History

Maru's videos are under the account name of mugumogu. His owner is rarely seen in the videos. The videos include title cards in English and Japanese setting up and describing the events, and often show Maru playing in cardboard boxes, indicated by "I love a box!" in his first video. Videos of Maru are collections of clips—usually around 3–7 minutes long—of Maru engaging in various activities, with most videos having a central theme or activity as indicated by the title card. Maru, during these videos, shows his fascination with boxes, his placid personality, his amusing antics, and an inventive intelligence and intuition. In June 2013, Maru's owner adopted a kitten named Hana from a veterinarian. During the two-week trial period, Maru and Hana got along very well and Hana began to appear in videos on the mugumogu channel. In November 2020, Maru's owner adopted another kitten named Miri from a neighbor who had rescued her from a storm drain.

Fame

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' mentioned Maru alongside

Keyboard Cat Keyboard Cat is the first video-based on cats internet meme. Its original form was a video made in 1984 by Charlie Schmidt of his cat Fatso seemingly playing a Electronic keyboard, musical keyboard (though manipulated by Schmidt off-camera) to ...

and Nora in its "Notable Kitty Videos" article. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' mentioned Maru in an article about cats and dogs in the media and included pictures of the cat. Maru's videos have been featured on the Fresh Step's commercial on the Fresh Step YouTube Channel. Maru has also been featured in advertisements within Japan, for various products. , Maru's channel is the 7th most subscribed in Japan. In March 2017, Maru was certified as the most viewed animal on YouTube. His videos have been watched a total of 535,935,278 times as of 3 July 2023.

Published media

In September 2009, a book and DVD entitled ''I am Maru'' (''Maru Desu'' or ''まるです'') was released in Japan. A second book titled ''More Maru'' was released on 31 August 2011, but only in Japanese.

References

External links

Maru's blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maru 2007 animal births Animals on the Internet Individual cats in Japan Internet memes about cats Japanese Internet celebrities Scottish Fold

History

Fame

Published media

See also

References

External links