About

Squeak! squeak! squeak! meow! (Japanese: きゅっきゅっきゅっニャー Kyu Kyu Kyu Nyaa), also known as the "cat dance", is a 4-stepped dance featuring characters wearing cat ears and tails, and mimicking cat gestures and sounds, often in front of a white background.^[1]

Origin

Monster Hunter Freedom Unit is a 2008 video game in the Monster Hunter franchise for PlayStation Portable.^[2] It is an expansion pack for the original Monster Hunter Freedom 2, and was released on March 27, 2008 in Japan as Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (モンスターハンターポータブル 2nd G, Monsutā hantā pōtaburu 2nd G).^[3]

During the data installation step, an option that increases game performance by shortening in-game loading times, a peculiar animation of cats (Felynes^[4] from the game) can be seen while a music composed of looping squeak! squeak! squeak! meow! sounds is played.

Spread

This song, as well as the animation, would be featured on Nico Nico Douga (NND) for the first time on November 21st, 2007 (before the game's release) with a video entitled きゅきゅきゅにゃー (kyu kyu kyu nya – squeak squeak squeak meow)^[5], and is believed to be the original song that would be used in MAD videos of the same theme.

The first alteration from that video, featuring another character drawn with cat ears and tail, was "Mon-Hun’s media installation dance by Chen" (ちぇんでモンハンのメディ(ry) which was posted on May 4th, 2008.^[6] The character used is in this iteration was Chen, a well-known Touhou catgirl character.^[7]

The dance led to a collection of 1,200 creations on NND.^[8]

Inspired by Maru the Cat: "X sliding in"

Maru the Cat is a Japanese cat which became a YouTube phenomenon in the years 2008-2009. That cat is notorious for interacting with various objects, often cardboard boxes and plastic containers, typically sliding inside them in the videos.

Because of its Japanese popularity (Maru's YouTube channel is the 9th most subscribed channel in Japan at that time), someone came up with the idea to combine the act of sliding in a cardboard box with the squeak! squeak! squeak! meow! music, the "meow!" for sliding into a box.
The first was named "Chen sliding in" (すべりこむちぇん), featuring Chen the catgirl, was posted on Nico Nico Douga July 21st, 2009.^[9]

For more information about that particular phenomenon, please check the KYM entry for X Sliding In.

Notable Examples

For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.