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

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. Videos featuring Maru have been viewed over 479 million times, and at one point held the Guinness World Record 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 August 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 Mugumogu decided to make Hana a new member of their family. 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 digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'' mentioned Maru alongside

Keyboard Cat Keyboard Cat is a video-based internet meme. Its original form was a video made in 1984 by Charlie Schmidt of his cat Fatso seemingly playing a musical keyboard (though manipulated by Schmidt off-camera) to a cheery tune. While Schmidt had uplo ...

and

Nora Nora, NORA, or Norah may refer to: * Nora (name), a feminine given name People with the surname * Arlind Nora (born 1980), Albanian footballer * Pierre Nora (born 1931), French historian Places Australia * Norah Head, New South Wales, headlan ...

in its "Notable Kitty Videos" article. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' 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 405,235,246 times as of 3 January 2019.

Published media

In September 2009, a book and DVD entitled ''I am Maru'' was released in Japan. A further DVD called ''Maru Desu'' followed in February the year after. A second book titled ''More Maru'' was released on August 31, 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