| Created in
1999 by Korean cartoonist Kim Jae-in, MashiMaro’s crudely
funny animated adventures have been adopted by countless fans.
He is the hippest cartoon mascot, hugely popular not only in
South Korea but throughout Asia and is a symbol of Korea with
cute furry things who get up to no good.
At first, Kim Jae-in and Jang Mi-yeong’s design of this
character, MashiMaro, was for a children educational program.
However, because MashiMaro’s eyes are small and long and
its hands and legs are short, the company thought that it
would not be appropriate to use as a character for the kids.
Therefore, they decided not to use it.
Later, the designers decided to use him as the main
character and to create a flash cartoon. Then, these flashes
were posted into the Internet in August, 2000 and they had
never thought that it would become that popular.
Approximately, 40,000 people per day get into the site. And in
the beginning of 2001, the company decided to sell the product
of MashiMaro. Up till now, there are approximately more than
1,000 different kinds of products.
MashiMaro is the main character from the story of
MashiMaro Forest. He is a very interesting rabbit. He feels
neglected because he is different from other rabbits. He is
sarcastic and negative about himself in order to hide the
miserable and lonely self. He also acts outrageously in order
to find his own significance. For this reason, some see either
love or hatred in ‘MashiMaro.’ MashiMaro tends to be a
representation of everyone in his own way...
He looks like a marshmallow, doesn’t he? The face was
inspired from the creator’s son - chubby with the slanty eyes.
The creator got that name because that’s how his baby son
would say “marshmallow.”
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