Mariko Takahashi was born and raised in San Francisco, California and is Japanese-American. Her father was an engineer and her mother was a ballerina, with the latter's occupation influencing Takahashi to pursue dancing and ballet in her adolescence. In 2010, Takahashi applied for a job with the YouTube comedy channel Smosh, formed by
Ian Hecox and
Anthony Padilla. At the time, the channel had sought expansion of their content and were seeking a Japanese speaker. She first became a host for their
Smosh Pit Weekly series on their secondary channel, which detailed content from their Smosh Pit blog hosted on their individual website. Takahashi joined Smosh Games – a collaborative venture between Smosh and members of ClevverGames – in 2012. She hosted various series on the channel, including
MariCraft, a Let's Play series where she played
Minecraft with members of the Smosh Games crew. She also partook in an ''
Assassin's Creed Origins''-based mini-series with member Joshua Ovenshire in 2017. Takahashi has been noted for her transition from working as a ballerina in a female-dominated industry to gaming as a male-dominated industry. She was the first female member of Smosh Games, Outside of Smosh, Takahashi has pursued other ventures. In 2016, Takahashi was a contestant in the 33rd season of
Survivor –
Millennials vs. Gen X. In anticipation, she hosted
MariCraft: Outsider as a
Survivor-based version of the
MariCraft series. The same year, she ventured into hosting as a correspondent for gaming website
Polygon's
Speedrun news series. Takahashi became a co-owner of the esports organization
Spacestation Gaming in 2021. She also worked with
Lacoste for a
Minecraft clothing collection in 2022, and in 2023, she hosted the
FailArmy gaming web series
50 Vs. 50.
Personal life 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. 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. == Filmography ==