Stitch!

Stitch! (スティッチ!, Suticchi!) is a Japanese anime television series. It is a spin-off of Disney's Lilo & Stitch franchise, serving as the franchise's second television series after Lilo & Stitch: The Series. The anime series aired in Japan from October 2008 to June 2011, later receiving additional television specials in 2012 and 2015. It features a Japanese girl named Yuna Kamihara, who takes the place of Lilo Pelekai as the best friend of the titular Stitch, and is set on a fictional island in the Ryukyus off the shore of Okinawa called Izayoi for its first two seasons, replacing Kauai, Hawaii, then moving to a fictional Okinawan city called New Town for its third season.
The first arc of the series, which serves as the first season outside Japan, was produced by Madhouse and aired from October 8, 2008, to March 25, 2009, with a post-season special on June 26, 2009, also known as "Stitch Day" in reference to Stitch's experiment number (626). A second arc of the original series, called Stitch! ~The Mischievous Alien's Great Adventure~ (スティッチ! ～いたずらエイリアンの大冒険～, Sutitchi! ~Itazura Eirian no Daibōken~) aired in Japan from October 13, 2009, to June 29, 2010, with another post-season special on August 8, 2010, completing Madhouse's 56-episode run. A 29-episode sequel series from the original two-arc anime, entitled Stitch! ~Best Friends Forever~ (スティッチ! ～ずっと最高のトモダチ～, Sutitchi! ~Zutto Saikō no Tomodachi~), was produced by Shin-Ei Animation and aired on TV Asahi from July 6, 2010, to March 8, 2011, with a post-season special for this season on June 19, 2011. Shin-Ei then produced two more TV specials, known as Stitch! New Specials, that continued from the series. The first special, Stitch and the Planet of Sand (スティッチと砂の惑星, Sutitchi to Suna no Wakusei), aired on June 16, 2012. The second post-series TV special, Stitch! Perfect Memory (スティッチ！パーフェクト・メモリー, Sutitchi! Pāfekuto Memorī), was announced on June 26, 2015, and aired on August 7, 2015. No further specials were produced after Perfect Memory, as Stitch! would be succeeded in the franchise by the Chinese animated series Stitch & Ai in 2017.
Set years after the events of Leroy & Stitch, Stitch has left Lilo after she went to college. He had stolen a space scooter from his creator Dr. Jumba Jookiba and reverted to his destructive programming in Lilo's absence. As Stitch was being chased by Jumba out in space, the two got caught in a wormhole. Jumba crash-lands on an asteroid in one of Saturn's rings, where he reunites with Pleakley, who had been stranded there while out on a mission about two weeks prior to the anime's events.
Meanwhile, Stitch ends up back on Earth, crash-landing on Izayoi Island, a small island in the Ryukyus. There he meets Yuna, a tomboyish girl who lives with her grandmother, practices karate, and whose marine biologist father is long out at sea working on his job. After some initial friction caused by Stitch causing chaos around the island looking for and eating lots of food and then getting temporarily stranded in a storm, the two befriend each other, and Yuna and her Gramma bring Stitch into their home. The two Izayoi Islanders show Stitch the Chitama Forest, a forest filled with magical yōkai who live there, and the Chitama Spiritual Stone, a large magical stone in the forest that provides the lifeforce of the yōkai and can grant wishes, provided that someone does 43 good deeds to prove themselves worthy of getting their wish granted. Stitch decides that he wants to become the strongest being and ruler of the universe for his wish. Jumba and Pleakley later escape Saturn and rejoin Stitch on Izayoi, and two aliens decide to stay on the island, joining Stitch's new family and helping him get his wish granted, with Jumba creating a "good deed counter" to help Stitch keep track of his progress.
Stitch does good deeds while enjoying his new life with Yuna on Izayoi, with them befriending various yōkai. They befriend Kijimunaa, a little yōkai with long red hair who has a powerful sneeze, after they help him get his home tree back from a bully yōkai, and he becomes a close ally to them. Meanwhile, Stitch's old nemesis and Jumba's former partner-in-crime Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel is at large, living in a laboratory hideout hidden on an asteroid along with Gantu and Experiment 625/Reuben, both of whom were re-hired by Hämsterviel after having been discharged from the United Galactic Federation in the interim between the events of Leroy & Stitch and this series. (In the English dub, Gantu says he was dishonorably discharged for singing karaoke poorly during a holiday party.) Hämsterviel, with Gantu and Reuben's help, spies on Stitch and learns about Stitch's new goal and eventually, by the end of the season, the Spiritual Stone. Hämsterviel goes after Stitch to take ultimate power from the stone himself.
Three of Stitch and Reuben's fellow experiments also appear during this season. Experiment 221/Sparky was somehow captured by Hämsterviel after the events of Leroy, and Hämsterviel uses a mind control helmet to get Sparky to attack Stitch. However, the Spiritual Stone eventually uses its power to destroy the helmet, bringing Sparky back to his previous friendlier self, thus allowing him to resume being one of Stitch's closest "cousins". Sparky is given a new job or "one true place" on the island, using his electrical powers at a local hair salon (this job isn't depicted in the international reversion that the English dub uses). Experiment 010/Felix was inexplicably somewhere out in space until Stitch calls for him in one episode to get out of doing cleaning, which goes well until Felix runs out of filth to clean and begins sucking up old antique things. After Jumba reprograms Felix to prevent him from further cleaning antiques, and Stitch manages to return the antique items to their owners, Felix is given a new "one true place" working for Izayoi's recycling department. Finally, Experiment 624/Angel, who has become an intergalactically popular singer in the time after Leroy, reunites with Stitch after somehow finding out where he now lives. The two resume being a romantic couple, with Angel making visits to the island during breaks on her concert tour to continue her relationship with Stitch.
In the two-part season finale "Stitch vs. Hämsterviel", Hämsterviel manages to mind control Jumba to successfully steal the Spiritual Stone's power and transfer some of it to him, becoming more powerful than Stitch. He then captures Stitch, shrinking him and trapping him in a nigh-indestructible container. However, Yuna rescues Stitch, and the Spiritual Stone temporarily transfers its remaining power to him. Stitch successfully defeats Hämsterviel, returning the Spiritual Stone's power to it, and sends him, Gantu, and Reuben to galactic prison. However, Stitch is returned to his original strength afterward, much to his dismay, as he still needs to do more good deeds to keep the "ultimate power".
Stitch continues to live his life with Yuna, doing more good deeds for his wish to be granted and meeting more yōkai and other strange beings along the way. Meanwhile, Hämsterviel, Gantu, and Reuben escape from prison at the beginning of the season and return to their hideout, and Hämsterviel plots to re-gain the Spiritual Stone's power.
Three new characters join this season. During the villains' time in prison, Hämsterviel finds a strange, purple, female, insect-like alien with shapeshifting abilities, and sends her to Earth to break Stitch's good deed counter. When Jumba repairs the counter, he and Pleakley find the purple alien and discover that it was brainwashed by Hämsterviel. After undoing the brainwashing and fixing Stitch's counter, the insect becomes the aliens' new pet who Pleakley names "BooGoo", as she is only able to say the words, "Boo goo!" Later on, two more people move onto Izayoi Island; Sasha, a transfer student who becomes Yuna's newest friend, and Tigerlily Sakai, Yuna's beautiful and talented but mean cousin who bullies her and Stitch. Yuna also reunites with her father in a couple episodes. Additionally, more experiments, both originating from Lilo & Stitch: The Series and newly introduced to the franchise, appear from this season onward, with most of them now inexplicably under Hämsterviel's possession. However, the heroes manage to re-tame them.
At the end of this season (and, in turn, Madhouse's run of the series), Stitch finally gains the 43 good deeds after saving the galaxy from a warhead fired by Experiment Zero, an experiment Jumba made before he gave proper numbers to his experiments, by redirecting it into a black hole just as it explodes. Although Stitch seemingly dies in the explosion, he survives thanks to the Spiritual Stone teleporting him back to Earth and to Yuna. As they reunite, he reveals to her that he used his wish to live with her forever, having decided that living with her is better than being the strongest in the universe.
Yuna, Stitch, Tigerlily, Jumba, Pleakley, and BooGoo move to a city called Okinawa New Town, with the former three living together in a small house just outside the city limits. In New Town, Yuna meets her new classmates, and she and Stitch go on various adventures around the city. Hämsterviel, now living on a space station orbiting Earth with Gantu and Reuben, partners with an evil alien woman named Delia, who desires to retrieve a power cell within Stitch called (only in the Japanese version) the "Neo-PowerChip" so she can create a powerful experiment of her own. Hämsterviel sends out Gantu, Reuben, and several of Stitch's "cousins"—who Hämsterviel had brainwashed and "transmutated" beforehand—on various missions to try to attack and capture Stitch so he can be teleported over to Delia. However, Hämsterviel always fails, often resulting in him getting tortured by Delia. Lilo, now an adult with a daughter of her own named Ani, also returns in one episode of this season for a brief reunion and reconciliation with Stitch.
In the final two episodes of the season, Delia manages to steal a new prototype power cell from Jumba and uses it to create her experiment named "Dark End", who then attacks Stitch on Delia's behalf and nearly kills him. Stitch's friends revive him through their love and support of him, overcharging his power cell, and he overpowers and defeats Dark End, saving the world again and sending Hämsterviel, Gantu, and Reuben back to galactic prison along with Delia.
In both of the post-series specials, Stitch and the Planet of Sand and Stitch! Perfect Memory, Stitch and Pleakley go out on missions assigned to them by the United Galactic Federation, finding out Hämsterviel, Gantu, and Reuben are behind more crimes.
In March 2008, Walt Disney Television International Japan started procuring its own animated shows with their first two debuting at Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008, producing Stitch! with Japanese animation studio Madhouse. Seasons one and two of Stitch! were animated by Madhouse, and season three was animated by Shin-Ei Animation.
At the 2008 Tokyo International Anime Fair, the pilot for the series was showcased to attendees at the Madhouse booth. Information was also shown around Disney's booth, showing the cast of characters who would appear in the anime. Many of the past characters, such as Jumba Jookiba and Pleakley, appear, as well as five villains: Gantu, Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel, Experiment 625/Reuben, Experiment 627 (in a second season episode), and (in the third season) a new villain named Delia. In addition, three of Jumba's genetic experiments, Experiment 624/Angel, Experiment 221/Sparky and Experiment 010/Felix, also appear in the anime's first season due to their popularity from the American series, although the latter two would appear less frequently in subsequent seasons while more experiments, both returning from the original series and its finale film, and new experiments made for this show, appear.
Stitch! started on TV Tokyo and following affiliates at 7:00 p.m. on October 8, 2008, and had an hour premiere of the first two episodes. Afterward, it aired every Wednesday after at 7:26 p.m. time slot, essentially replacing Bleach.
Similar to Hawaiian culture being featured in the original version, the culture of Okinawa Prefecture and the other Ryukyu Islands are featured. For example, Yuna's karate has replaced Lilo's hula.
Stitch! is influenced by children's manga and originally aimed at young Japanese kids aged 4 to 14 years. Most of the main characters are young children ranging from 8 to 12 years old, including Yuna. However, unlike Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Stitch! contains darker and more mature content.
The series was edited and localized for younger international audiences, especially those in the Western world and the Anglosphere, and a lower TV rating. The series's English dub used an American English-speaking cast that differed from the original cast of the previous films and Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
With the exception of Rocky McMurray reprising his Lilo & Stitch: The Series and Leroy & Stitch role of Clyde in the English dub of the second season episode "Stitchman Meets Bonnie and Clyde", none of the original English voice cast from the Lilo & Stitch films or Lilo & Stitch: The Series reprised their roles for the English dub of this series.
Stitch!: Original Soundtrack (スティッチ！オリジナル・サウンドトラック, Sutitchi! Orijinaru Saundotorakku) is a collection of opening, insert, and ending songs based on Stitch!. It was released on April 28, 2010.
The international version features an entirely different score composed by Thorsten Laewe, who released his score on his personal website.
The series airs on Seven Network, 7mate, 7Two, and Disney Channel in Australia, on Disney Channel in Singapore and India, on Toon Disney in Italy, on TV3 and TV2 in Malaysia, on TV5 in the Philippines, on RTÉ Two in Ireland, and on Disney Cinemagic in the United Kingdom.
The first season began airing in English on the Australian Disney Channel on 4 December 2009, and later on Disney Channel Asia 19 December 2009. The first season premièred on Disney Channel Latin America on 2 May 2010, in the American Spanish dub. The second season aired on Disney Channel Latin America on 6 June 2011. The third season aired on Disney Channel Latin America on 20 August 2012.
The first season also aired on Finland's Disney Channel beginning from 7 June 2010, subtitled in Finnish with the English dub. The anime has also aired in other Scandinavian countries on The Disney Channel, on Disney Cinemagic in the UK, and on Toon Disney in Italy. The Dutch version aired on Disney XD Netherlands and Disney Channel Netherlands as well as on the Disney Channel in Belgium. On October 24, 2011, the series began airing on Disney XD in the United States, but was removed from the schedule five days later for unknown reasons, leaving the series unfinished in the country. As a result, it has only five episodes aired in the U.S.
The series received several DVD box set releases in Japan.
In Japan and Singapore, the entire series and both post-series specials are available on Disney+. It was previously on Disney Deluxe, which was later rebranded as Disney+ in the former country but ran separately from the main platform. After the Japanese Disney+ merged with the main platform in October 2021, Stitch! was added to the main platform, albeit still restricted to Japan. Disney+ has only the original Japanese version of the series and splits Stitch and the Planet of Sand and Stitch! Perfect Memory into two parts each, each part its own episode; both specials are listed as part of season three. Despite the geo-blocking, metadata for languages other than Japanese (such as English) exist on the service, including logos, with episodes titles using either their official dub titles or translations of their Japanese titles; episodes that were shortened and merged with other episodes in the international version also use their combined titles for their respective languages. On August 12, 2022, Disney+ added English-translated subtitles to all episodes, marking the first time that the series' original Japanese production was subbed, although it remains restricted to Japan and Singapore on the service.
In India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, the series's international version is available on Disney+ Hotstar, with the English dub available in all regions, and Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Indonesian, and Thai dubs available depending on the region.