Mari Takahashi

Mariko "Mari" Takahashi (高橋 茉莉子 Takahashi Mariko; born November 2, 1984) is a Japanese-American YouTuber, former dancer, and long-term member of the Smosh Family. She was the creator and host of Smosh Pit Weekly for its original run and for the first four months of its revival. Despite rarely appearing in videos on the main Smosh channel, she became the third most recognised member of Smosh besides Ian and Anthony (until the addition of the rest of the main Smosh cast). Mari co-founded Smosh Games and has appeared in various series on the channel, including her own shows, Super Mari Fun Time and MariCraft. She departed Smosh in early 2020 to focus on her solo career.

She competed on the 33rd season of Survivor.

History
Mari originally shared Ian's YouTube account IanH (now Smosh Pit) and uploaded videos every Saturday. She also has her own channel, AtomicMari..

Mari first appeared on Ian is Bored 43, Worst Audition Ever!, where she was shown to be able to do the splits in jeans whilst standing up, revealing her to be very flexible.

In "Meme Schoolgirl!" it was revealed Mari as the winner of the audition for Smosh's next video series, which would turn out to be Smosh Pit Weekly. She hosted the series ever since its first episode, We Have "Crabs". However, during its run, Smosh Pit Weekly received very mixed reception from viewers, ranging from positive comments and constructive criticism to irrelevant compliments and negative responses. As a result, Smosh Pit Weekly episodes gained the most dislikes on YouTube out of all Smosh videos. However starting in August 2011, the later Smosh Pit Weekly episodes gained 90% more likes compared to the earlier episodes.

In September 2012, Mari co-founded and joined the original cast of Smosh Games, becoming the main host of several series such as Game Bang, Super Mari Fun Time and Minecraft. She was the only female member of the cast until the addition of Ericka "Boze" Bozeman in early 2017.

After Smosh Pit Weekly‘s discontinuation in 2015, Mari still occasionally appeared in Smosh 2nd Channel videos, usually as a guest.

On August 19, 2017 - nearly two years later - Smosh Pit Weekly was revived, with Mari returning as the host. Five months later she was replaced by Shayne Topp and Damien Haas for unknown reasons, potentially because she was away planning her wedding at the same time.

Departure from Smosh
On June 5, 2020, Mari announced on her Twitch stream that We Forgot How To Speak (Human Simulator Challenge) was her last Smosh video and she had left without much fanfare. She is now focusing on making content for her personal channel, hosting, and acting. She was the correspondent for Polygon's Speedrun show on Quibi until the show's cancellation. Mari later confirmed on her YouTube channel that she left Smosh in February 2020 after being given the ultimatum of creating New Element Six or continuing to work for Smosh, leading to her departure from the channel.

Appearances
Mari made her first appearance in a main Smosh video in Pokemon Theme Song REVENGE. She portrayed the assistant that came running in to the office to tell the CEO that Smosh had made another Pokemon video. She also appeared in the video I'M NOT RACIST!!!, playing one of Ian's two new Japanese friends who had just come from an Elvis convention. In the video, she said, "F***ing racist" to Anthony in Japanese.

Mari was featured in three Lunchtime with Smosh episodes: ASIAN LUNCHTIME! (W/ MARI!), THE Reverse Cowgirl! and Teenage Mutant Ninja Smosh!

Mari once accompanied Ian in an Ian is Bored video, Crazy Asian Food Test!. In AWESOME NEW ROBOT!, Mari appears as the girl in pigtails in the robot commercial, playing with Ian's character Billy Hamburger.Mari also appeared in Holy Crap! 2 Billion Views!, along with the rest of the cast of "Smosh Games" at the time. She appeared in the bathroom playing a Pokemon Tournament with a Gameboy Advance SP.

In May 2013, Mari had an appearance in Dixon Cider as one of the background dancers, though she wore less revealing clothes than the other dancers and even performed as a ballerina for a few seconds. Since Dixon Cider, she has appeared in many Smosh brand update videos on the main channel such as The TRUTH about Smosh. She has also played both minor and major roles in some more recent Smosh sketches, such as EVERY GIRLS NIGHT OUT EVER and HOW TO NOT PISS OFF ASIAN PEOPLE.

Personal Life
Outside of Smosh commitments, Mari has most notably worked as a ballet dancer, as explained in one of her Smosh Pit Weekly episodes. This explains the flexibility shown in her Smosh audition, and there are videos of her demonstrating her talent for dancing on her personal channel, AtomicMari. She formerly went on tour with her dance group, as seen in two Smosh Pit Weekly episodes where she filmed in her hotel room. Mari taught ballet since she was 15 years old and was seen on her Instagram to continue teaching over Zoom, even in quarantine in 2020.

Mari also enjoys rock climbing. As shown in some pictures, she has been known to climb some slopes without a harness.

Mari loves traveling and has been to 29 countries. She has summitted Mount Kilimanjaro, ice-climbed 3 peaks in the Cordillera Blanca in South America, and climbed Mount Fuji in Japan. Mari has skydived and is scuba certified.

She has also collaborated on another YouTube series, Ask a Naked Guy. Coincidentally, Ian and Anthony once starred in an episode of the series. Mari also collaborated with Hidden Fortress for a video, Mari's Shadow.

Mari also competed on the 33rd season of Survivor, entitled Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X. She placed 19th.

Mari has been in a relationship with photographer Peter Kitch since 2010. They met in January of that year at a rock climbing gym, where Mari had decided to officially take lessons after climbing Mount Kilimanjaro; Peter was her instructor.undefined They became engaged in April 2017 and kept it a secret for many months. They got married in Japan on April 5th, 2018, in a traditional Japanese ceremony.

Trivia

 * Mari is the only member of Smosh Games to have been a full-time member throughout its entire existence up until June 2020.
 * During the interim period after the shutdown of Defy Media, she shared this honor with Jovenshire. However, since Smosh's acquisition by Mythical Entertainment, Joven has gone on record saying that he will not return to Smosh Games full-time, despite the channel becoming fully operational again.
 * Mari considers herself a tomboy.
 * Due to her background in ballet dancing, Mari is consistently one of the best players in dancing games, having only been in the bottom three for 3 out of 12 times (Just Dance Rematch, The King Of Pop Would Be Proud and Making Music With Our Bodies (All of which she came 4th place in)). As of Making Music With Our Bodies, she remains the only player that has never had to do a punishment in a dancing Game Bang.
 * There is a character in Otaku Taco Truck named after her.
 * Mari began her training in ballet dancing aged two and a half, and became a professional dancer at seventeen.undefined
 * Despite showing numerous videos of herself dancing, doing ballet as a full-time career and even branching out into teaching, Mari apparently believes herself to be an "average" ballet dancer - though she also claims to not let this belief hinder her.undefined
 * Mari's mother, Ayako, was also a ballet dancer.
 * Mari is good friends with all of the Smosh cast, but she seems to be closest to Ian and Joven, as they and their partners are often seen at each others' social events. Joven has implied that he considers Mari to be the closest thing he has to a sister.
 * She sometimes hangs out with the Smosh Squad.
 * Mari is the second oldest member of the Smosh Family, being several months younger than Lasercorn but several years older than Joven, Flitz, Sohinki and Ian (all born in 1987).
 * She stated on the SGA Live episode "Super Mario Maker w/ Mari & Sohinki" that she and Sohinki were born approximately 10 months apart.
 * Mari and Joven are both fans of British Sci-Fi Drama Doctor Who, Mari herself even has a TARDIS painted into her living-room wall.
 * Mari's father appeared in the Maricraft episode "Minecraft Arson with Mari's Dad".
 * Mari has one brother, Koji, who is ten years older than her.undefined He is married and has two sons.
 * Joven, amongst others, has proven that Mari is easily scared. Two notable examples would be that Joven scared her by hiding under her desk and in Smosh Games Forms a Biker Gang she scared both herself and Flitz by them walking into each other.
 * She is not a good player of Deadliest Warrior, losing six times in "We Are Not the Deadliest Warriors". She taunted her opponents in Japanese, and Joven replied "I don't speak Spanish". Her gaming strengths are in dancing games, such as Just Dance.
 * There is running joke/theme about Mari being the most lustful or kinky of the Smosh Games group; for example, in Lasercorn's prop hunt video she was happy to see a hentai picture, did various acts and said certain things in Grand Theft Smosh and hosted a top 5 video called Top 5 Bangable Aliens.
 * As a result of this, many fans temporarily believed that Mari was bisexual; however this is probably unlikely as it was just part of a joke.
 * Up until MARI LEARNS TO RIDE A BIKE Mari had never learned how to ride a bike, implying that her parents had not wanted her to - though the precise reason for this is unclear. By the end of the video, she was able to steer the bike on her own for a certain amount of time.
 * The above video was also the first appearance of her future husband, Peter, on the Smosh Games channel.
 * In the BTS video for Smosh Live, it was shown that Mari taught the Smosh Squad the dance for the "IntergalacWhip" skit.
 * On multiple occasions, Mari has expressed discontent of others touching her belly button, apparently because it is ticklish. In a body painting punishment with Jovenshire, he touched her belly button and she laughed loudly followed with Lasercorn shouting "you found her tickle spot!"
 * Mari seems to be extremely ticklish in general. When wrestling in a tub of lube with Wes for a punishment, Wes started to tickle Mari on her side and armpit, resulting in her visibly squirming. Also, in an old Spin the Bottle video[which?], when doing a challenge with Anthony she had her arms above her head. Sohinki and Ian then try to sabotage Mari by tickling her armpits (she even responds with "Oh my gosh, stop it!").
 * Mari's AtomicMari channel is the only former Smosh Games member channel to, as of November 2021, still be in the "Featured Channels" sections of one of the Smosh channels, specifically Smosh Pit.