Maru the Cat

2008viral videoclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Maru is a male Scottish Fold from Japan whose owner filmed him diving headfirst into cardboard boxes and sliding across wooden floors, videos that made him an international YouTube cat celebrity starting in 2008. Guinness World Records eventually named him the most-watched animal on the platform, and his mugumogu channel piled up hundreds of millions of views. Maru's death on September 6, 2025 at age 18 set off a wave of tributes across X, Reddit and Guinness itself.

catspet video memescelebrity animal memesjapanese internet memesyoutube viral

Overview

The visual signature of a Maru video is very simple. A cardboard box appears on the wooden floor of a Japanese apartment, and a chunky gray-and-white Scottish Fold approaches, sizes up the angle for a second, then dives headfirst inside2. The camera holds while Maru either wedges in comfortably, gets his back half stuck, or squishes himself into a container obviously too small for him3.

Owner mugumogu shot the clips in the same living room over almost two decades, giving the channel a homemade, single-set look that separated it from the more produced pet accounts that came later1. Titles were kept short and often bilingual, so non-Japanese viewers could find and watch clips without translation. What made Maru instantly recognizable was his willingness to interact with pretty much any cardboard object, including cereal boxes, bubble wrap, plastic cups and later boxes so small he wore them like hats3.

Unlike Grumpy Cat or Nyan Cat, Maru was not really an image macro or a caption format. He was a video-native meme built around one running joke, that a fat cat will always try to fit into a box even when he clearly cannot, and the mugumogu channel kept feeding that joke almost weekly for years4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Photo blog 'I am Maru' (2007) / YouTube channel mugumogu (viral spread)
Creator
mugumogu
Date
2008

Maru was born on May 24, 2007. His anonymous owner started the photo blog 'I am Maru' in November 2007 to post pictures of the young Scottish Fold3. Almost a year later, in July 2008, the same owner opened the mugumogu YouTube channel and began uploading short clips of Maru's indoor life, including the early bubble-wrap and soda-box videos that first got picked up by English-language blogs7.

English-speaking readers got their first big introduction to Maru through a BoingBoing post on November 8, 2008, which framed him as an 'overweight male Scottish Fold' from Japan with 'a thing for putting himself into things' and embedded one of the early box clips2. Two days later, Urlesque ran a Monday feature titled 'Maru the Cat Who Likes to Get Stuck in Things', linking three of his early videos plus the mugumogu channel and the 'I am Maru' blog3.

How It Spread

Cute Overload followed in September 2009 with a post joking that 'Maru-itis' was sweeping the nation, one of the earlier cat blogs to treat him as a recognized meme rather than a random find4. By late 2009 the mugumogu channel was one of the top cat channels on YouTube Japan and had won the platform's Pet/Animal video award for a second straight year9. That same September, Japanese publisher Kadokawa released the first Maru photobook, a book-plus-DVD titled 'I AM MARU' pitched around the channel's 4.5 million YouTube views at the time6.

Mainstream U.S. media picked him up through 2010. The Los Angeles Times' Unleashed blog ran a March post calling him a 'YouTube star' and highlighting a new tambourine-tail clip that had already pulled more than 130,000 views over a single weekend1. In June 2010 a Maru clip aired on Ellen DeGeneres, and Urlesque then held a bracket-style 'Catfight' tournament in August with nearly 40,000 votes cast, where Maru beat Ceiling Cat in the final round to be named 'The Web's Favorite Feline'5. After the March 2011 earthquake in Japan, mugumogu posted an update on the blog confirming Maru was safe, with a carrier packed in case of evacuation9.

On March 27, 2017, Guinness World Records officially named Maru the most-watched animal on YouTube, and by mid-2019 the mugumogu channel had passed 325 million lifetime views9. On September 6, 2025, the I am Maru YouTube community tab posted an announcement that Maru had died at age 18, drawing over 12,000 likes and 3,100 comments within two days. Tributes spread fast: an X clip from user @iloveairbagged pulled thousands of views the same day8, a post on the r/cats subreddit hit over 18,000 upvotes in about 24 hours, and the official Guinness World Records account tweeted a farewell noting his record for 'squishing himself into tiny cardboard boxes'8.

Cultural Impact

Maru sat at the front edge of the YouTube cat-celebrity wave that later included Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub and Nala Cat, but with a much smaller creative footprint, essentially one owner, one apartment and one running joke about boxes. The mugumogu channel was cited by Entertainment Weekly in a 2009 'Notable Kitty Videos' roundup alongside Keyboard Cat and Nora the Piano Cat, and NHK ran him on a variety show as the 'world's most famous cat' during a viewing spike that pulled millions of views in a single month9. His branding also crossed into Japanese print, with Kadokawa releasing a second photobook and DVD compilation in August 20106.

Fun Facts

- Scottish Folds are born with straight ears that only fold downward around three weeks of age in some kittens, which is why Maru's ears sit tucked against his head1.

- The very first English-language write-up of Maru on BoingBoing came from a reader named Jack asking for a 'cute cat video chaser' after a post about psychopathy2.

- Urlesque's 2010 'Catfight' organizers actually ordered Maru a championship wrestling belt, a three-foot gold karate trophy and a 'World's Best Dad' grilling apron as prizes, but they were on backorder when he won5.

- The Japanese photobook site for 'I AM MARU' hid nine wallpaper boxes across the page, and only the boxes containing Maru unlocked the download6.

- Guinness World Records specifically recognized Maru for his record of squishing himself into tiny cardboard boxes in its 2025 tribute post8.

Frequently Asked Questions

Maru the Cat

2008viral videoclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Maru is a male Scottish Fold from Japan whose owner filmed him diving headfirst into cardboard boxes and sliding across wooden floors, videos that made him an international YouTube cat celebrity starting in 2008. Guinness World Records eventually named him the most-watched animal on the platform, and his mugumogu channel piled up hundreds of millions of views. Maru's death on September 6, 2025 at age 18 set off a wave of tributes across X, Reddit and Guinness itself.

cats pet video memes celebrity animal memes japanese internet memes youtube viral

Overview

The visual signature of a Maru video is very simple. A cardboard box appears on the wooden floor of a Japanese apartment, and a chunky gray-and-white Scottish Fold approaches, sizes up the angle for a second, then dives headfirst inside2. The camera holds while Maru either wedges in comfortably, gets his back half stuck, or squishes himself into a container obviously too small for him3.

Owner mugumogu shot the clips in the same living room over almost two decades, giving the channel a homemade, single-set look that separated it from the more produced pet accounts that came later1. Titles were kept short and often bilingual, so non-Japanese viewers could find and watch clips without translation. What made Maru instantly recognizable was his willingness to interact with pretty much any cardboard object, including cereal boxes, bubble wrap, plastic cups and later boxes so small he wore them like hats3.

Unlike Grumpy Cat or Nyan Cat, Maru was not really an image macro or a caption format. He was a video-native meme built around one running joke, that a fat cat will always try to fit into a box even when he clearly cannot, and the mugumogu channel kept feeding that joke almost weekly for years4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Photo blog 'I am Maru' (2007) / YouTube channel mugumogu (viral spread)
Creator
mugumogu
Date
2008

Maru was born on May 24, 2007. His anonymous owner started the photo blog 'I am Maru' in November 2007 to post pictures of the young Scottish Fold3. Almost a year later, in July 2008, the same owner opened the mugumogu YouTube channel and began uploading short clips of Maru's indoor life, including the early bubble-wrap and soda-box videos that first got picked up by English-language blogs7.

English-speaking readers got their first big introduction to Maru through a BoingBoing post on November 8, 2008, which framed him as an 'overweight male Scottish Fold' from Japan with 'a thing for putting himself into things' and embedded one of the early box clips2. Two days later, Urlesque ran a Monday feature titled 'Maru the Cat Who Likes to Get Stuck in Things', linking three of his early videos plus the mugumogu channel and the 'I am Maru' blog3.

How It Spread

Cute Overload followed in September 2009 with a post joking that 'Maru-itis' was sweeping the nation, one of the earlier cat blogs to treat him as a recognized meme rather than a random find4. By late 2009 the mugumogu channel was one of the top cat channels on YouTube Japan and had won the platform's Pet/Animal video award for a second straight year9. That same September, Japanese publisher Kadokawa released the first Maru photobook, a book-plus-DVD titled 'I AM MARU' pitched around the channel's 4.5 million YouTube views at the time6.

Mainstream U.S. media picked him up through 2010. The Los Angeles Times' Unleashed blog ran a March post calling him a 'YouTube star' and highlighting a new tambourine-tail clip that had already pulled more than 130,000 views over a single weekend1. In June 2010 a Maru clip aired on Ellen DeGeneres, and Urlesque then held a bracket-style 'Catfight' tournament in August with nearly 40,000 votes cast, where Maru beat Ceiling Cat in the final round to be named 'The Web's Favorite Feline'5. After the March 2011 earthquake in Japan, mugumogu posted an update on the blog confirming Maru was safe, with a carrier packed in case of evacuation9.

On March 27, 2017, Guinness World Records officially named Maru the most-watched animal on YouTube, and by mid-2019 the mugumogu channel had passed 325 million lifetime views9. On September 6, 2025, the I am Maru YouTube community tab posted an announcement that Maru had died at age 18, drawing over 12,000 likes and 3,100 comments within two days. Tributes spread fast: an X clip from user @iloveairbagged pulled thousands of views the same day8, a post on the r/cats subreddit hit over 18,000 upvotes in about 24 hours, and the official Guinness World Records account tweeted a farewell noting his record for 'squishing himself into tiny cardboard boxes'8.

Cultural Impact

Maru sat at the front edge of the YouTube cat-celebrity wave that later included Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub and Nala Cat, but with a much smaller creative footprint, essentially one owner, one apartment and one running joke about boxes. The mugumogu channel was cited by Entertainment Weekly in a 2009 'Notable Kitty Videos' roundup alongside Keyboard Cat and Nora the Piano Cat, and NHK ran him on a variety show as the 'world's most famous cat' during a viewing spike that pulled millions of views in a single month9. His branding also crossed into Japanese print, with Kadokawa releasing a second photobook and DVD compilation in August 20106.

Fun Facts

- Scottish Folds are born with straight ears that only fold downward around three weeks of age in some kittens, which is why Maru's ears sit tucked against his head1.

- The very first English-language write-up of Maru on BoingBoing came from a reader named Jack asking for a 'cute cat video chaser' after a post about psychopathy2.

- Urlesque's 2010 'Catfight' organizers actually ordered Maru a championship wrestling belt, a three-foot gold karate trophy and a 'World's Best Dad' grilling apron as prizes, but they were on backorder when he won5.

- The Japanese photobook site for 'I AM MARU' hid nine wallpaper boxes across the page, and only the boxes containing Maru unlocked the download6.

- Guinness World Records specifically recognized Maru for his record of squishing himself into tiny cardboard boxes in its 2025 tribute post8.

Frequently Asked Questions