Maru is a male Scottish Straight cat in Japan who has become popular on YouTube. As of September 2016, videos featuring Maru have been viewed over 325 million times, a 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 owner posts videos that are under the account name of mugumogu. His owner is almost never 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 in length — 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 mongrel 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.
Fame
Entertainment Weekly mentioned Maru alongside Keyboard Cat and Nora in its "Notable Kitty Videos" article. The New York Times 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. After the March 2011 earthquakes in Japan, Mugumogu reported from Maru's blog that Maru was safe and unharmed, though a carrying case was prepared in the event of an evacuation. 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 the September of 2009, a book and DVD entitled 'I am Maru' was released in Japan in September 2009. A further DVD called Maru Desu followed in February the year after. A second book, called "More Maru" was released on August 31, 2011, but only in Japanese.
