Born in July
Punch was born on July 26, 2025, at Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba, Japan. He was a Japanese macaque, small and pink-faced, with the dark round eyes common to his species. The staff named him after Monkey Punch, the manga artist who created Lupin the Third.
It was the middle of a brutal summer heatwave. The kind that drains everything, including patience. The day after Punch arrived, his mother walked away from him and did not come back. Experts later said it was likely a combination of her age, inexperience, and the stress of the heat. Whatever the reason, the result was the same. Punch was one day old and alone.
The Keepers Step In
The zookeepers at Ichikawa began hand-rearing Punch on July 27. They bottle-fed him every few hours, kept him in a warm room, and held him the way his mother would have. A newborn macaque needs constant contact. Without it, the muscles do not develop right. Without it, the mind does not settle.
Punch gripped whatever was closest. Sleeves, fingers, towels. The keepers noticed early that what calmed him most was not food or warmth. It was having something soft to hold onto. Something that would not walk away.
Oran-Mama
Someone brought in a Djungelskog, an oversized stuffed orangutan made by IKEA. It was soft, round, and had long arms that a small monkey could wrap himself in. Punch took to it the moment it was placed beside him. He pressed his face into its chest and gripped its fur with both hands. He slept against it. He woke up against it. He carried it with him when the keepers moved him to a new space.
The staff started calling it Oran-Mama. The name fit. For months, it was the closest thing Punch had to a parent. He groomed it, nuzzled it, and tucked himself under its arms when anything startled him. The stuffed orangutan could not feed him or teach him how to be a macaque. But it could be there. And that was enough to keep him steady.
Monkey Mountain
On January 19, 2026, the keepers decided Punch was ready. They brought him to Monkey Mountain, the main outdoor enclosure at Ichikawa, home to roughly sixty Japanese macaques. It was a lot of animals at once. They had their own rules, their own hierarchies, their own ways of deciding who belonged and who did not.
Not all of them welcomed him. Some of the older macaques pushed him, scolded him, chased him off rocks he tried to sit on. Punch had not learned the social rules that macaque mothers teach from birth: when to look away, when to yield, how to groom, where to sit. He kept Oran-Mama close and stayed near the edges. He watched. He waited. He figured things out the slow way.
The Whole World Watching
On February 5, 2026, Ichikawa City Zoo posted a photo of Punch on social media. A small monkey clutching a stuffed orangutan on a rocky hillside, surrounded by a troop that had not yet decided what to make of him. The image spread fast. Then faster. Then it was everywhere. The hashtag #HangInTherePunch went around the world in a matter of days.
Visitors arrived at the zoo in numbers the staff had never seen. Lines formed outside the gates before opening. On February 17, IKEA Japan donated thirty-three Djungelskog stuffed animals to the zoo. The company's CEO delivered them personally to the mayor of Ichikawa. Punch, who had been alone in a keeper room six months earlier, was now the most watched monkey on earth.
Learning to Let Go
By late February, something shifted. Punch was playing with other macaques and eating on his own. Another monkey groomed him for the first time, which in macaque society is not a small thing. It means you are accepted. By March, he was spending hours alongside adult monkeys, learning by watching them the way he was always supposed to.
He still carried Oran-Mama sometimes. But less often. Some days he left it on a rock and wandered off with the troop. Some days he came back for it. Nobody rushed him. He was not the monkey he would have been if his mother had stayed. But he was there, on Monkey Mountain, with sixty companions and a stuffed orangutan waiting for him whenever the day got hard. That was enough.
Field Notes
- Punch (Panchi-kun) was born July 26, 2025, at Ichikawa City Zoo in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan. His mother abandoned him the following day. Experts cited her age, inexperience, and stress from a severe summer heatwave.
- He was named after Monkey Punch, the manga artist best known for creating Lupin the Third.
- Zookeepers gave him an IKEA Djungelskog stuffed orangutan as a surrogate. Staff nicknamed it Oran-Mama. Punch clung to it for months.
- Punch was introduced to the zoo's main macaque group of roughly sixty animals on January 19, 2026. He was initially bullied and struggled to socialize.
- A zoo social media post on February 5, 2026, went viral under the hashtag #HangInTherePunch, drawing international attention and record visitor numbers to the zoo.
- On February 17, 2026, IKEA Japan donated thirty-three stuffed animals to the zoo. By March 2026, Punch was socializing with adult macaques and relying on Oran-Mama less often.
Support Ichikawa City Zoo
Punch lives at Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba, Japan. The keepers there raised him by hand and kept him close while he found his footing. The zoo has cared for animals and welcomed visitors since 1953.
Visit Ichikawa City Zoo
