The series depicts the simple, everyday life of Momoko Sakura, a young girl everyone calls Maruko, and her family in suburban Japan in the year 1974.

The series is set in the former of Irie District (入江町), Shimizu, now part of Shizuoka City, birthplace of its author.

The first story under the title "Chibi Maruko-chan" was published in the August 1986 edition of the manga magazine Ribon.

The author's intent was to write "essays in manga form";[1] many stories are inspired by incidents from her own life, and some characters are based on her family and friends.

It has also spawned numerous games, animated films and merchandising, as well as a second TV series running from 1995 to the present.

[5] The trademark face fault of this series, in reaction to an awkward "don't know what to say" situation (or sometimes, embarrassment) is the sudden appearance of vertical lines (黒い線, kuroi sen) on a character's face, sometimes with an unexplained gust of wind blowing above that character's head.

The series has a large number and variety of secondary and recurring characters, some inspired by people who Sakura met.

The volume contains seven new chapters, and are based on stories that Sakura originally created for the Chibi Maruko-chan television anime.

A spin-off manga by Momoko Sakura titled Nagasawa-kun (永沢君, ながさわくん) focuses on the character Kimio Nagasawa on High School, was published on the magazine Shogakkan's Big Comic Spirits from January 1993 and May 1995.

[7] The outro song Odoru Ponpokorin became a hit and was interpreted by several artists including the KinKi Kids and Captain Jack.

Both the LaserDisc sleeve and the ending of the segment credit the 1994 English production to Ocean Studios in Vancouver, Canada.

In Latin America, is distributed by The Japan Foundation, the dub was produced in Mexico and broadcast on several local, public and other private television networks.

As of 14 January 2024, Crunchyroll has started to stream the series from episode 1419 in the USA, Canada, the Philippines and Singapore.