Maru the Cat

About

Maru (まる, Japanese: circle or round) is a male Scottish Fold cat from Japan, who’s become well-known in the YouTube community for the videos of him playing in a childlike fashion, such as lying around, jumping into small cardboard boxes and sliding across his owner’s wooden floor.

Origin

Beginning in July 2008, YouTube user mugumogu^[1] began posting videos of Maru the cat’s daily adventures. His owner has also kept a blog, “I am Maru” to chronicle Maru’s life in photos as well.^[2]

As of August 2010, mugumogu’s channel has over 60,000,000 total upload views and is the 8th Most Subscribed channel and 11th Most Viewed channel of all time in Japan.

Spread

Maru’s exploits spread across the internet in 2008 on BoingBoing^[3], Neatorama^[4], EW PopWatch^[5] and Urlesque.^[6]

In 2008 and 2009, Maru won YouTube Japan video awards in the Pet/Animal category.^[7][8]

In 2009, Maru’s videos began to spread to hubs like I Can Has Cheezburger^[9], CuteOverload, and Ebaum’s World. His videos also appeared on Sundance Channel’s SUNfiltered blog^[12] and Laughing Squid.^[13]

On September 1, 2009 the first Maru photobook was published in Japan.^[14] About a year later in August 2010, a second book^[15] and compilation DVD was released.^[16]

Coverage of Maru did not stop in 2010, when his videos were featured on the L.A. Times Unleashed Blog^[17], New York Times Television section^[18], and the Ellen Degeneres show.^[19] He was also interviewed by the cat blog LoveMeow.^[20]

Maru was voted the Internet’s Favorite Feline in Urlesque’s August 2010 “Catfight,” beating Ceiling Cat in the final round.

Search

Search queries for Maru show a rise in popularity in November of 2008, and have shown an increase in popularity well into May of 2011.

Maru’s 3rd Birthday

On May 24th, 2011, mugumogu uploaded a new video celebrating Maru’s 3rd birthday with a montage of Maru clips.

Derivatives

Parody

Sub-meme: “X sliding in”

Starting the 21st of July 2009 on Nico Nico Douga, the trend of using characters drawn with cat ears and tails sliding into cardboard boxes emerged, inspired by the Maru videos. It was then called “すべりこむちぇん” ^[22] (Chen sliding in) and featured a well-known catgirl character from the Touhou series. It also used the soundtrack from the squeak! squeak! squeak! meow! dance, the “meow!” sound being the moment when the character can be seen sliding into the box.

The trend is now known as “すべりこむ○○シリーズ” (X sliding in) and has led to more than 170 video creations on Nico Nico Douga. More can be found in the video gallery below.

External Links

^[1] YouTube – mugumogu

^[2]I am Maru.

^[3] BoingBoing – Magu the Cat

^[4] Neatorama – Maru the Box Loving Cat

^[5] EW PopWatch – Maru

^[6] Urlesque – Maru the Cat Who Likes to Get Stuck in Things

^[7] YouTube – YouTube Awards Japan

^[8] Gigazine – YouTube Awards Japan

^[9] I Can Has Cheezburger – Maru the Sliding Box Cat

^[10] Cute Overload – Maru Itis is Sweeping the Nation

^[11] Ebaum’s World – Maru the Cat

^[12] Sundance Channel – Meet Maru the Japanese LOLcat

^[13] Laughing Squid – Maru the Cat Loves Attacking Boxes

^[14] Amazon Japan – Maru photobook

^[15] Toki Meki – Maru

^[16] Columbia Japan – Maru DVD

^[17] L.A. Times Unleashed – Your Morning Adorable YouTube Star: Maru the Cat

^[18] New York Times – Television section

^[19] YouTube – Ellen Degeneres show

^[20] Love Meow – Interview With Maru the Cat

^[21] Urlesque – Catfight Winner Maru

^[22] Nico Nico Douga – すべりこむちぇん