Lilo & Stitch

Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated science-fiction comedy-drama film written and directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois that was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Disney. It is also the name of a Disney media franchise, alternately called just Stitch, that spawned from the film. The film was released during a low point for Disney's feature animation studio, known today as either the "Post-Renaissance Era" (the period between the Disney Renaissance and the Disney Revival) or the "Experimental Era" (since Disney's animated films became more experimental with their storytelling and were moving away from the templates used for the Renaissance's films), and became a surprise critical and commercial success for the company at a time when traditionally-animated films were losing relevance. The titular alien genetic experiment Stitch (also known as Experiment 626; number pronounced "six-two-six") rapidly became one of Disney's most popular characters, especially in merchandise, becoming arguably Disney's first animated character introduced in the 21st century to have achieved an iconic status.

Main works
The main continuity of the franchise, which focuses on both title characters living their lives on Hawaii, consists of four animated feature films, a Western animated television series, and an animated short film.

Lilo & Stitch (2002)
In the original 2002 film, released on June 21, 2002, Kweltikwan mad scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) stands trial for illegal genetic experimentation, having created a superpowerful blue creature called "Experiment 626" (voiced by co-writer/co-director Chris Sanders), who is designed solely to destroy everything he touches. After 626 escapes custody to a backwater planet called Earth, the Grand Councilwoman (Zoe Caldwell) offers Jumba his freedom for the capture of his creation. On Earth, 626 crash lands his stolen spacecraft on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where he gets adopted by an eccentric six-year-old girl named Lilo Pelekai (Daveigh Chase), who is shunned by her peers and is at risk of being forcibly separated from her older sister Nani (Tia Carrere) by her newest social worker Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames) to be put into foster care. In trying to escape capture by Jumba and his assigned partner, Plorgonarian "Earth expert" Agent Wendy Pleakley (Kevin McDonald), 626 lets himself be adopted by Lilo as her "dog" who she renames as "Stitch".

Stitch's aggressive behavior, especially in his attempts to avoid Jumba and Pleakley, causes problems for Lilo and Nani, costing the latter her job as a luau waitress. Cobra demands Nani to find a new job and Lilo to make Stitch a "model citizen"; Lilo uses her beliefs in  ' ohana, a Hawaiian concept of extended family, as well as iconic singer Elvis Presley as a role model, to attempt to rehabilitate Stitch, while Nani tries to find new employment. Although Stitch's attitude improves as he slowly enjoys his time with Lilo, his and Lilo's antics prevent Nani from finding a new job. As David Kawena (Jason Scott Lee), a local surfer who is a good friend to the Pelekai sisters, gets them and Stitch to go surfing and enjoy some time on the beach, Jumba and Pleakley make a last-ditch effort to capture Stitch. Although Stitch escapes them again, his inability to swim or float in water causes him and Lilo, who he tried to grab onto for protection and flotation, to have a near-drowning experience, which Cobra witnesses. The incident costs Nani her chances at keeping Lilo, and Cobra tells Nani that he would pick up Lilo the next morning. Feeling guilty for causing the sisters' now-inevitable separation, Stitch runs away from their home that night.

The next morning, Nani runs off to take on a new job offer before Cobra arrives for Lilo. Jumba, who was fired alongside Pleakley finds Stitch in the woods and chases him back to the Pelekais' house, which they destroy in the ensuing fight. Lilo runs off to the nearby woods to find Stitch, who reveals his true alien form to her. Although Lilo tries to reject him for ruining everything, they are both captured by the massive Captain Gantu (Kevin Michael Richardson), who was sent by the Grand Councilwoman to take over Jumba and Pleakley's assignment. Stitch escapes but Lilo remains captured on Gantu's spaceship. He is then found again by Nani, then Jumba and Pleakley shortly after. He tells Nani that he's changed by reminding her of  ' ohana, and convinces Jumba to rescue Lilo. Chasing Gantu down in Jumba's spaceship, Stitch throws out Gantu from his spaceship and rescues Lilo. The sisters and the aliens reconvene at the shore where Stitch is finally captured by the Grand Councilman. Stitch accepts his fate, proving how much he's changed as a person, but as he about to leave in the Councilwoman's spaceship, Lilo, with some prodding from Cobra, shows her ownership document to the Councilwoman and tells her that taking him away would be theft. Pleased with the document, the Grand Councilwoman decrees that Stitch is "sentenced" to exile with the Pelekai sisters as his wardens and that the three are protected by the United Galactic Federation. After leaving, Lilo, Nani, and Stitch accept the exiled Jumba and Pleakley into their home, they, along with David and Cobra, reconstruct their house and begin a happy life together.

Stitch! The Movie (2003)
This direct-to-video pilot to Lilo & Stitch: The Series, released on August 26, 2003, shows that Gantu, forcibly retired from his post in the original film, is now hired by the diminutive Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel (voiced by Jeff Bennett) to retrieve Jumba's first 625 genetic experiments, which Hämsterviel co-funded the creation of prior to the end of their partnership. On Earth, Stitch struggles to fit in with the locals and feels bad about himself. Jumba then gets kidnapped by Gantu, who also finds the dehydrated pod of Experiment 625 (Rob Paulsen), and takes him to Hämsterviel. After finding the first 624 experiments, Lilo and Stitch activate one of them by dropping its pod in water, the electrical Experiment 221 (Frank Welker), to help rescue Jumba, but he escapes. The duo then chases down and capture 221, and Stitch bonds with him as his "cousin", based on Hawaiian terminology he learned from Lilo. When Cobra and Pleakley rendezvous at Kīlauea Lighthouse with Gantu and Hämsterviel to exchange the pods of the other experiments as ransom payment for Jumba, Lilo and Stitch then show up with "Sparky" (as she named 221), freeing him then and there and freeing Jumba. Gantu and Hämsterviel attempt to make off with the experiments, but the Grand Councilwoman's ship emerges from the nearby Pacific Ocean and aims its gun and Hämsterviel. However, Lilo protests on the account that he has the other experiments, and Sparky decides to short-circuit the Councilwoman's ship. Lilo, Stitch and Sparky stow away on Hämsterviel's ship as he and Gantu escape. Lilo, Stitch, and Gantu fight over the experiment pod container, which results in the container releasing and scattering the pods all over Hawaii, and Lilo and Stitch's capture. However, just as Stitch is about to be vivisected by a laser while strapped to a weight that's just too heavy for him to lift, Sparky frees him, they strap Hämsterviel to the weight, and Stitch rescues Lilo before she gets teleported to an intergalactic zoo. They short-circuit Gantu's own ship, causing it to crash by a waterfall on Kauai, and land Hämsterviel's ship back over to the rendezvous point at the lighthouse, handing Hämsterviel in handcuffs over to the Grand Councilwoman. Lilo and Stitch give Sparky a new home in powering the lighthouse, then convince the Councilwoman to have them find and rehabilitate the other 623 experiments (625 was activated by Gantu earlier and sticks with him as his sidekick, although he's too lazy and cowardly to put in any effort apart from making and eating sandwiches). As several experiments are activated when they fall into the water, Lilo and Stitch drive off in Nani's dune buggy, leading to the subsequent series.

Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003–2006)
The franchise's first television series first ran from September 20, 2003, to July 29, 2006 for 65 episodes over two seasons, airing new episodes on both ABC's Saturday morning block ABC Kids and Disney Channel throughout its run. The only animated show in the franchise to truly follow-up on the original film, Lilo & Stitch: The Series has the titular duo continue capturing Jumba's other experiments, naming them, and rehabilitating them from bad to good by finding a new place where they truly belong and can use their unique abilities to help society. Jumba and sometimes Pleakley usually assist them. Meanwhile, Gantu and his reluctant sidekick Experiment 625 try to capture experiments for Dr. Hämsterviel, who is imprisoned on a prison asteroid, usually fighting against Lilo and Stitch for the experiments.

Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005)
A direct-to-video direct sequel to the first film released on August 30, 2005, set before ''Stitch! The Movie, this film showed insights to the lives of the Pelekai  ' ohana after the events of Lilo & Stitch''. The film had Lilo (voiced by Dakota Fanning in this film) trying to come up with an original hula dance for a May Day competition that her late mother previously won. However, Stitch begins to suffer glitches that cause him to revert to his original destructive programming. Unbeknownst to either him or Lilo, these glitches are the result of his molecules not being fully charged when he was created, as he and Jumba were arrested shortly after the experiment's creation. While Jumba tries to build a new fusion chamber to recharge Stitch before his molecules lose all their charge, and Pleakley attempts to "fix" David and Nani's supposedly strained relationship, Stitch's glitches causes friction between him and Lilo, leading to her deciding to perform her hula without him. On the day of the hula competition, on which Jumba had finally completed construction of the fusion chamber, Stitch tries to wish Lilo good luck, but has another glitch that causes him to scratch her face. This causes him to believe that he's too dangerous to be around her, and he takes Jumba's spaceship to try to free to a distant remote planet. Lilo, realizing that the glitches were not his fault, abandons her performance and gets her family go save Stitch, who has one final glitch that causes him to crash the ship on a mountain. Lilo reaches Stitch via a hovercraft and tries to revitalize him by putting him in the fusion chamber, but he supposedly dies. However, he then wakes up in Lilo's arms cured of his glitches, as according to her, "love is more powerful than death."

The Origin of Stitch (2005)
This short film included with Lilo & Stitch 2 as a DVD and later Disney+ extra is a bridge between that film and ''Stitch! The Movie''. The short film reveals what kinds of alien creatures were used to create Stitch, with Jumba reminding the experiment of what he has become, and also hints at the other 625 experiments made before him.

Leroy & Stitch (2006)
This television film aired on June 23, 2006, serving as the finale of Lilo & Stitch: The Series and the main continuity of the franchise with Stitch being with Lilo in Hawaii. In the film, Lilo, Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakley are honored as heroes of the Galactic Alliance (the name of the United Galactic Federation in The Series) after successfully reforming all of the first 624 experiments. Jumba is given the key back to his old lab at Galaxy Defense Industries, Pleakley is made the head of Earth studies at Galactic Alliance Community College (G.A.C.C.), Stitch is made the Captain of the Galactic Armada as the commander of its newly commissioned ship the BRB-9000 (Big Red Battleship 9000) and Lilo, now Galactic Federation Ambassador to Earth, is designated the sole guardian of Stitch's "cousins". However, with the aliens' having to leave Earth, Lilo gives them parting gifts; a record of Elvis Presley's performance of "Aloha 'Oe", Pleakley an Earth rock as a paperweight, and Stitch a collar-like necklace with a tiki of Kū, the Hawaiian god of strength.

Meanwhile, Gantu, who only managed to catch Experiment 625, decides to break Dr. Hämsterviel out of prison, leaving 625 stranded on Earth as Gantu flies off in his Manta Shuttle, which only has two seats. As Stitch is assigned to go recapture Hämsterviel, Hämsterviel and Gantu burst into Jumba's lab and forces Jumba to create an evil twin of Stitch that Hämsterviel names Leroy, who then gets into a fight with Stitch when he arrives, winning when Stitch is distracted by Pleakley's sudden appearance, allowing Leroy to throw Stitch into a containment capsule. Hämsterviel locks Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakley into Pleakley's G.A.C.C. ship to send them towards a black hole, then clones Leroy into his own personal army, then goes off to the planet Turo take over the Galactic Alliance.

On Earth, Lilo misses Stitch and convinces 625 to allow her to use the videophone on Gantu's ship when she names him "Reuben", after the Reuben sandwich. They contact the BRB-9000 to find what looks like Stitch, who is actually a shapeshifted Leroy but find him to be an imposter as he doesn't have Stitch's tiki necklace. After Leroy cuts off the feed, Lilo then motivates Reuben to repair the ship to rescue Stitch. Hämsterviel sends a Leroy clone to Earth to capture all the experiments to be destroyed, including Lilo's rival Mertle Edmonds (voiced by Liliana Mumy in The Series and all films except for Lilo & Stitch, where she was voiced by Miranda Paige Walls), the owner of Experiment 007, Gigi. Lilo and Reuben arrive at Turo to find that the Hämsterviel has taken over the Galactic Alliance. Gantu locks away Lilo and Reuben but releases them after Hämsterviel fires him in favor of Leroy. After being trapped by Leroy clones in an attempt to, Lilo, Reuben and Gantu are then saved by the sudden appearance of the G.A.C.C. van, which went through the black hole but had its trajectory changed after, based on Jumba's personal calculations on how they could avoid being dumped to a volcanic planet by the black hole, Stitch disrupted the event horizon by biting into Pleakley's rock and throwing it at the black hole.

Lilo, Reuben and Gantu join Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley inside the van and head straight for Earth, where it's revealed that Leroy gathered all the experiments (and Mertle) at Aloha Stadium, where a concert is planned to take place in the future. Hämsterviel almost uses the weapons on the BRB-9000 to destroy the experiments, but the G.A.C.C. van suddenly appears and destroys the BRB's primary cannon. However, Hämsterviel brought his Leroy army as a backup, and soon the experiments and the Leroys have an epic battle against one another. As the Leroys start getting the upper hand, Jumba then remembers that he programmed a secret command in Leroy that if he hears "Aloha 'Oe", he will shut down. Stitch, Lilo, Reuben, and a few other experiments then put on a concert playing the song, causing all the Leroys to get violent seizures and shut down, and Hämsterviel is recaptured and sent back to prison.

The team is honored as heroes of the Galactic Alliance, but Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley request to return to living on Earth with Lilo. The Grand Councilwoman grants their request and asks Gantu if he would like to be reinstated as a captain of the Galactic Armada. He agrees on the condition that Reuben joins him as his galley officer. Back on Earth, Lilo takes one final family photo with her  ' ohana, including Stitch, Nani David, Jumba, Pleakley, the experiments, and even Mertle, while in prison, an angry Hämsterviel taps his foot while the Leroys dance to Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock".

Spin-offs
Since the end of the main continuity in 2006, Disney has produced a number of spin-offs focusing more on Stitch and his antics in various locations on Earth, making new friends with other human beings. All such spin-offs so far have been primarily made in the countries where such works take place. Additionally, the English versions of the animated spin-offs have featured an entirely different voice cast from the original, with Benjamin Diskin taking over as the voice of Stitch and Lilo & Stitch: The Series screenwriter and executive producer Jess Winfield replacing David Ogden Stiers as the voice of Jumba.

Stitch! (2008–2011, 2012, 2015)
This Japanese anime series ran from 2008 to 2011 for 83 episodes and three specials, with an additional two specials broadcast in 2012 and 2015. The first two seasons, consisting of 54 episodes and two specials, were produced by Madhouse, while the 29 episodes of the third season and the last three specials were produced by Shin-Ei Animation. The English dub first debuted in Australia in 2009 and briefly ran in the United States on Disney XD in October 2011. The German dub of this series retitles it as Yuna & Stitch.

In this series, Stitch has left Lilo after falsely believing that she abandoned him when she grew up. After spending time in space, he eventually ends up on the fictitious Izayoi Island, which is off the shore of Okinawa in the Ryukyus. There, he meets Yuna Kamihara (voiced by Eden Riegel in the English dub), a tomboyish local girl with an interest in karate, and he, Jumba and Pleakley (Ted Biaselli) join her family. On the island, Stitch discovers and learns about the "Spiritual Stone", a magical stone that can grant wishes provided one does 43 good deeds (which can be lost; Stitch loses good deeds often due to his mischievous behavior), and Stitch wishes to be the strongest being in the universe. However, by the end of the second season, when Stitch finally earns enough good deeds, he instead decides to use his wish to stay with Yuna instead. Throughout the two Madhouse seasons, Stitch also fights off against Dr. Hämsterviel (Kirk Thornton), who is at large along with Gantu (Keith Silverstein) and Experiment 625/Reuben (Dave Wittenberg), and wishes to use the stone to gain ultimate power.

In the third season, Yuna, Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley instead move to Okinawa New Town with Yuna's cousin Tigerlily (Laura Bailey), while Hämsterviel partners with an alien woman named Delia (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) who desires to retrieve a power cell embedded within Stitch. She eventually creates her own powerful experiment, Dark End (Roger Craig Smith), to fight Stitch. Lilo (Gwendoline Yeo), now an adult with a daughter named Ani (Melissa Fahn) who looks remarkably identical to her back when she was a child, also returns in an episode to reunite with Stitch.

Stitch & Ai (2017)
This English-language Chinese animated series was produced by Anhui Xinhua Media and Panimation Hwakai Media with cooperation with American animators, including some of the crew of Lilo & Stitch: The Series. It ran for one thirteen-episode season from March 27 to April 6, 2017, with a Mandarin Chinese dub, while the original English production was first broadcast in Southeast Asia from February 5 to 27, 2018. Twelve of the thirteen episodes were later released in the United States for free digital streaming on DisneyNow on December 1, 2018, although they were removed from the service by June 2019.

This series has Stitch kidnapped by a faction of alien criminals called the Jaboodies and held in their spaceship above Earth, only for a rival faction called the Woolagongs, who also want Stitch for themselves, attack the ship in an effort to capture him, allowing him to escape to Earth. Upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, he ends up in the Huangshan mountains in China's Anhui province. There he meets a spirited young girl named Wang Ai Ling (voiced in English by Erica Mendez), who lives in her home in the mountains her older sister Jeijei (Laura Post), but whose aunt Daiyu (Post) wants to move her out to live in the city under the false belief that she will have a better life there. Ai takes in Stitch as her "dog", and the two help each other with their problems. They are also joined by Jumba and Pleakley (Lucien Dodge) after they are initially sent by the Grand Councilwoman to rescue Stitch. However, Jumba is concerned that an ability he secretly programmed in Stitch, a metamorphosis ability that turns the little blue experiment into a giant destructive monster, could be triggered if the alien criminals still going after him try to subconsciously manipulate Stitch into triggering it.

Stitch & the Samurai (2020)
This Japanese manga spin-off was written and illustrated by Hiroto Wada, also known in Japan as Tono & Stitch, and published digitally from January 13 to December 28, 2020. The English translation of the first compiled volume will be published by Tokyopop on May 11, 2021. Unlike past works, Stitch ends up in Earth's past and befriends an adult male instead of a young girl. In this manga, Stitch ends up traveling through time as well as space, crash landing in Sengoku-era Japan. There he meets Yamato Meison, a samurai warlord who takes the blue "tanuki" after seeing his power and finding him to be "cute".

Lilo & Stitch and furry
The original Lilo & Stitch film won the 2002 Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture; director Chris Sanders accepted the award in person. Separately, Lilo & Stitch: The Series was nominated for the 2003 Ursa Major Award award for Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Series for the series's first 27 episodes, but lost to Gary the Rat, while its pilot film ''Stitch! The Movie was nominated for Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture the same year, but lost to Finding Nemo''.

Lilo & Stitch has a niche amount of popularity in the furry community due to the animalistic-looking aliens featured in the franchise, with Stitch being a modestly popular character within the furry fandom. Some of the other experiments, including his immediate predecessor Reuben (Experiment 625) and female counterpart, love interest, and mate Angel (Experiment 624), are also recognizable. The film and the franchise's messages of  ' ohana and finding belongingness with others have also resonated with much of the furry fandom, as several furs have personally found belongingness within the fandom.

Some furs have an "experimentsona" or "Stitchsona"—a representation of oneself as a genetic experiment, usually more based on Stitch's own design than other experiments—as their fursona or as an alternate form of their own pre-existing one, as if their main fursona was genetically modified by the creator of the experiments Dr. Jumba Jookiba himself.

Bara Stitch
"Bara Stitch", also called "Himbo Stitch" and "Buff Stitch", refers to a trend in January and February 2021 of fan interpretations of "anthropomorphized" versions of Stitch. During the trend, several artists on Twitter and Fur Affinity shared fan art they made featuring such interpretations of Stitch. In such artwork, he is portrayed with a body shape of a human adult, oftentimes with some human-based features such as nipples, hands, and feet, while still maintaining most of his regular genetic experiment features including eyes, ears, nose, mouth, head shape, fur, and claws, though not necessarily all such features. His more humanoid body in such renditions is typically given a muscular build, overweight build or a build with a mixture of both per the aspects of male characters portrayed in works of the bara genre (short for Barazoku, which was a gay-oriented magazine in Japan) from which the trend takes its name. While Stitch has received most of the attention during the trend, some artists have drawn other Lilo & Stitch characters either instead of or alongside Stitch to bring more attention to them.

Several fan art of "anthropomorphic" Stitch have been made well before the trend, but not to the levels beforehand. Stitch is technically already an anthropomorphic creature since he has a high level of human-like intelligence and sentience and has opposable thumbs (or at least, fingers that can act much like opposable thumbs), but this isn't as apparent due to his somewhat feral appearance and at times behavior. Thus, "anthropomorphic Stitch" usually means a version of Stitch with a more humanoid body shape; this is usually given in the form of a body similar to a male human adult or teenager. Additionally, in the vein of Rule 63 of the Internet, he has also been given female interpretations by fans, including with a humanoid body shape.

Early signs of the trend began around January 15, 2021. On that day, artist eclipticafusion posted a drawing of anthrofied versions of Stitch, Reuben, and Leroy based on drawings of "anthro Stitch" that he saw himself. This drawing got considerable attention; as of February 13, 2021, the tweet was retweeted 905 times and received over 5,100 likes. Later that day, furry artist tbid tweeted a drawing of a "himbo" Stitch they made the previous week, later posting an explicit version of the drawing over two hours later. As of February 13, 2021, the tweet with the original "safe" version of the drawing has been retweeted 283 times and liked almost 1,300 times, while the tweet with the explicit version has been retweeted 652 times and liked over 3,000 times. According to their first Stitch drawing tweet, they were inspired by the drawings of fellow furry artist Maxpany, who is known for his artwork involving usually male anthropomorphic cartoon characters given traits of macroifcation (including the involvement of size growth and muscle growth), hyper-endowment, and/or obesity (including weight gain). Among the regular subjects in Maxpany's art are Lilo & Stitch characters, most often Stitch and Reuben. At the time of the trend, Maxpany was posting a series of drawing of his blue-furred, pink-haired anthropomorphic lemur fursona Max enjoying life with a taller, increasingly overweight version of Stitch as his "husband". (Although not depicted in this series, Max also has an alternate "experiment-sona" form based on the Lilo & Stitch experiments.)

The trend truly took off a week later on January 22, 2021, when, furry artist MineDoo posted a colored sketch of a bust portrait of Stitch with a buff chest, greyish-blue nipples, and a thick neck as he smirks at the viewer. This drawing was also apparently inspired by Maxpany's Stitch drawings. The drawing garnered significant interest, with many Twitter users responding that they find the muscular rendition of the alien attractive, garnering over a thousand retweets and over 6,900 likes as of February 13, 2021.

MineDoo's drawing led to a windfall of other artists making their own renditions of an anthropomorphized Stitch. Others have also shared pre-2021 artwork of an anthropomorphic Stitch. These other renditions gave Stitch a variety of different designs and body shapes to these artists' liking, although some artists drew other characters from the franchise, either with or without Stitch, out of a desire to bring more attention to them. These characters were usually Gantu (the largest major character in the canon in both size and muscular shape), an "anthrofied" Reuben (who is one of the franchise's major experiments and is canonically chubbier than Stitch) and Jumba (the most obesely built character); "anthrofied" versions of Leroy and Angel, both of whom are among the better-known experiments in the fandom alongside Stitch and Reuben, were also made during the trend. Other artists have also opted to add an older Lilo alongside Stitch to show them having "grown-up" together, even though the franchise has mostly excluded Lilo since Leroy & Stitch, and Stitch is shown in official media to be incapable of growing taller or even aging. (Lilo has official teenage and adult designs as seen in the Lilo & Stitch: The Series episode "Skip", when she and Stitch skip ahead ten and twenty years into the future, and the Stitch! episode "Lilo", which shows her and Stitch reuniting in her adulthood. However, several of these "older Lilo & Stitch" art pieces do not show her with the specific older body she has in those episodes.)