YMMV tropes for the franchise in general (including works without their own pages)
Adorkable: Lilo's kind-hearted personality, strange obsession with Elvis Presley, and odd hobby of taking photos of fat people qualify her for this.
Archive Panic: Lilo & Stitch has been one of Disney's most active franchises since its 2002 debut. Between all the animated material released, there are four feature-length films, a short film, and 166 television episodes and specials in total.note 65 episodes of Lilo & Stitch: The Series, 83 episodes of the Stitch! anime, five Stitch! specials (one for each of the three seasons plus the two post-series specials), and thirteen episodes of Stitch & Ai. And there are printed media, too, including an alternate universe manga, a detective book series that follows the original film, and a comic that is also a sequel to the first film.
Even though she is one of the more popular experiments in the franchise, becoming a major character a few years after her debut, there are Lilo & Stitch fans who do not like her as they see her as an underdeveloped, flatDistaff Counterpart to Stitch who was only introduced just to give him a love interest in The Series. Her detractors say that she gets a lot of positive discrimination from much of the fanbase, comparable to Lola Bunny. It can be argued that then-executive disapproval of her, which prevented her from making any further appearances apart from "Snafu" and Leroy & Stitch, negated any chances for her to develop further as a character in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, and the anime's producers tried to make up for that.
The anime's interpretation of her was also base-breaking in its own right. Several fans did not like her newfound diva attitude, avarice, and seeming lack of faith towards Stitch, the last one considering that she was wooed over by 627 in a human prince disguise in one episode and a modified Reuben in another. However, other viewers, including Saberspark, actually like the changes given to her, giving her legitimate flaws that fit her career of being a successful pop singer, and find her more entertaining in that show as a result. (Saberspark even enjoyed how Stitch was "down bad" with her.)
There are also those who dislike Angel's role as Stitch's love interest due to Stitch calling all the experiments his cousins, which gives off uncomfortable squicky implications to many. This frustrates other fans who know and understand that the "cousins" thing is actually based on Hawaiian terminology—basically used in the same context as "friend", much like the British and Australian "mate"—and Angel is the only one of Stitch's predecessors who he does not consider a "cousin". Notably, Disney now promotes her as "Stitch's friend" rather than "girlfriend" because of this.
And finally, crossing over with First Installment Wins, there's Angel's appearances in Disney's crossover video games, in particular Disney Magic Kingdoms, Disney Emoji Blitz, and Disney Speedstorm. Fans of the franchise as a whole mostly love her addition to these games as these not only prove how she's become popular in her own right, they show how much of a positive impact Lilo & Stitch: The Series had on the whole franchise and even the Disney Animated Canon itself. However, puristic fans have been angered by the fact that Disney is daring to acknowledge what these fans call "non-canon" TV sequels, years after they ended, and choosing to add a "pink girl Stitch" over other beloved characters from the first film. It got especially heated when Gameloft, the developer-publisher of Disney Magic Kingdoms and Disney Speedstorm, teased (and later confirmed) her addition to the latter, causing a lot of dispute among Speedstorm fans over her being added as a Racer in that game instead of Pleakley, Nani, or Cobra Bubbles (who were all made Crew Members instead).
While Stitch is one of Disney's most popular characters, with many having been won over by his cute charms and Character Development, some viewers were very put off by his mischief and gross behavior. Forbes's Scott Mendelson considers Stitch to be a major detriment to the film and distracting from Lilo and Nani's plights because Stitch "spends 99%" of the film causing the Pelekai sisters' lives to be worse than they already were.note Never mind the fact that Stitch eventually realizes what the consequences of his actions are in the film, but Mendelson was so engrossed with the Pelekai sisters that he couldn't care about any other character in the film even though (as he pointed out) it ends on a happy ending. It got worse after Stitch's Great Escape! opened to horrid reception with a poorly-received interpretation of Stitch, with many older Disney fans, especially a portion of American Disney Theme Parks fans who fondly remember SGE!'s predecessor, holding a misplaced grudge against the character solely because of that ride. There's also a contingent of Lilo & Stitch fans who feel burned out by Stitch because they feel that he's become overexposed in merchandise and marketing, especially at the expense of nearly every other character in the franchise, including even Lilo, the other titular character.
Scrump, Lilo's rag doll, became this in more recent years due to "her" own overexposure on merchandise and other promotional imagery. Several fans of the original film love the ragdoll for its Ugly Cute charm and there's a good amount of fan art of the doll, whether with Lilo, Stitch, or even by herself. But several fans of the franchise, however, have grown increasingly tired of the doll's inflated prominence in the franchise's merch and marketing, viewing it as a Creator's Pet who's overshadowing the rest of the actual cast (besides Stitch himself). Some even actively avoid buying merchandise if it so much contains at least a small appearance of Scrump unless there's another character other than the titular duo appearing as well. Those fans are also not happy with Disney's pushing the idea that Stitch is supposedly very attached to Scrump when the actual canon—or even the just first film—doesn't really show him to be anywhere nearly as attached to "her", and just want this heavy promotion of Scrump to stop.
Tying in with the issues under Contested Sequel below, the experiments other than Stitch in general (not just Angel) are also this. Many fans love all the unique and fun designs, abilities, and personalities of the experiments, expanding on the ʻohana that they've grown to love. Others (especially purists) dislike them because they believe that they make Stitch less unique of a character, they're "too ugly" and/or "flat" to be worth supporting, and bloat the size of the ʻohana to unmanageable levels.note Even though Leroy & Stitch has a scene at the beginning showing Lilo checking up on the experiments, complete with a clipboard, to make sure if they are happy in their true places, showing that she has figured out a way to handle so many of them. The experiments' detractors thus tend to deem all the experiments other than Stitch Fanon Discontinuity, finding the whole concept of Jumba actually having successfully made 625 new lifeforms before Stitch came along to be too incredulous to work and going to the point of deeming Stitch the only experiment Jumba made. This "anti-experiment" mentality ticks off the experiments' supporters in turn, to which some call the detractors hypocrites to the inclusive message of ʻohana.
When the movie was released, Nani was either viewed as a relatable Cool Big Sis to Lilo who wanted to do what was best for her sister while managing the stress of also providing for her, or a mean and controlling Big Sister Bully, which was worsened by her more irritable portrayal in Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
For a franchise that's all about family, the fanbase is quite broken on their opinions of the franchise these days. Lilo & Stitch's fanbase range from those who like nearly everything the franchise has produced (including the Asian spin-offs) to outright purists who only like the original film (and maybeLilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch).
The whole ordeal over separating Lilo and Stitch in general and Disney seeming trying to keep the franchise focused on just Stitch, to the point of trying to rebrand the franchise by shortening it to just his name. Supporters of the later spin-offs like Stitch's ʻohana being expanded, keeping the franchise fresh by showing that his family doesn't have to be restricted to Hawaii while enjoying seeing him staying in the limelight by bringing his style of cute mischief over to other countries and time periods. Detractors believe that Disney is replacing Stitch's old family by taking him away from them and putting him in new ones, arguing that Disney's just repeating what the franchise has done before over and over againonly with different humans and cultures and are not further developing or evolving Stitch's character in any meaningful way. They also believe that there's no need for Disney to transplant an already established character/universe to introduce audiences to other cultures.note They are not against expanding the ʻohana, they're against having to take Lilo out of Stitch's life in order to do so.
For the Asian spin-off shows, the voice acting. They're either as charming as the original voices or incredibly annoying.
The new voice actors for the returning characters themselves (particularly Stitch and Jumba, who are voiced by Ben Diskin and Jess Winfield respectively in both shows) have either done such a good job replicating the characters' original voices that they should be rightfully seen as the new voice actors for those characters going forward (albeit, in Diskin's case, only if Sanders either is no longer capable of doing Stitch's voice or dies) or sound so off from the originals that Disney should drop them altogether and either bring back their original voice actors or look for new voice actors elsewhere (Jumba in particular actually having gotten a new official voice actor in Piotr Michael beginning with Disney Speedstorm).
The original film getting a live-action remake. While this is nothing new among the Disney Live-Action Remakes, Lilo & Stitch is a special case due to its intimate and realistic story. Many feel that the uniqueness of Lilo & Stitch would be "ruined" by being made into live-action and CGI, while others like the idea because not only would it introduce Lilo & Stitch to a new generation, but hopefully bring mainstream attention back to the franchise. There are also concerns over how the aliens, especially Stitch, would look in realistic CGI, and some are concerned Disney would whitewash the human characters (with some making cracks on Emma Stonenote see Aloha or Scarlett Johanssonnote see Ghost in the Shell [2017] starring).
Some fans also got upset when it was reported that it would not be coming to theaters, but rather be a direct-to-digital Disney+ Original instead with a budget around the $60 million range that the 2019 Lady and the Tramp remake on the service had, which is less than the $80 million budget for the original 2002 Lilo & Stitch film. (And unlike Lady and the Tramp, a Lilo & StitchLive-Action Adaptation would need a lot more CGI for the alien characters and environments than Lady and the Tramp's talking animals, which some viewers thought had a creepy look.) Some fans do believe, however, that Disney+ is a great fit due to its popularity and that it's better suited for smaller films with a relatively lower stakes plot such as Lilo & Stitch.
Stitch loves Scrump to the point that "she" is his Companion Cube. Except that Scrump is Lilo's rag doll, and that the imagery of Stitch's closeness to Scrump is only perpetuated by Disney to sell merchandise. In the original film, he only interacts with the doll twice; the first time was during his first night in Lilo's bedroom, where he, still far from having reformed, passively takes Scrump and the coffee-filled baby bottle Lilo filled for him trying to claim Lilo's bed for himself for a moment. The second time was when he uses Scrump as part of a makeshift bomb in his fight against Jumba. There aren't that much more interactions between him and the doll in the sequel material either, and his few interactions with Scrump in such material remain either passive or even negative (such as in "Phantasmo", even though that one was because Scrump was possessed by the experiment of the episode).
Chris Sanders Art's pinned comment: Tantalog was a concept developed by the series. Since I wrote and directed the original film, I can report that it does NOT mean “I want to destroy.”
Chris Sanders Art(in a reply to a user stating the supposed translation): Not terrible enough! I debated with the series creators on this one! It’s WAY WORSE!
Contested Sequel: Lilo & Stitch is one of Disney's most polarizing animated franchises in regard to its sequel and spin-off material. Articles and listicles about Disney spin-offs and sequels have given Lilo & Stitch's three sequel films and Lilo & Stitch: The Series both praise and criticism (although several instances of the latter have been met with "He Panned It, Now He Sucks!" reactions from the franchise's fans).
Some people see Lilo & Stitch: The Series (and its films Stitch! The Movie and Leroy & Stitch) as Sequelitis due to their executive-mandatedLighter and Softer tone compared to the original film, formulaic writing, Flanderization of the original film's characters, and the show's focus on the aliens' antics causing much of the mundane charms of the first film to be lost. On the other hand, The Series's supporters love seeing all the unique experiments, enjoy Lilo and Stitch's adventures in capturing them, find Lilo & Stitch's message of inclusiveness being maintained through their efforts, and see that it has much of the fun and charm of the first film intact. Either way, Lilo & Stitch: The Series can be seen as divisive among Disney's animated shows.
Sequel film Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch also received this reaction, as it's generally liked for being the closest to the original film aesthetically and thematically, especially with its maintained focus on the titular duo's relationship. As a result, it is often seen as the best sequel entry. However, it has also been criticized for its plot going all over the place (especially its Ass PullDoing in the Scientist ending) and for disregarding much of the continuity and mythology established in The Series.
The Asian spin-offs are even more contested:
The Stitch! anime gets criticized even more so for replacing Lilo with Canon ForeignerYuna, changing the characterizations of much of the returning characters for the worse, and being a Time SkipStealthSequel Series to the rest of the franchise, among other things. Its fans and supporters enjoy that it continues Stitch's story, shows more of the experiments (even introducing new ones), and that it has its own unique qualities that others tend to overlook or dismiss. They also argue that it proves that the franchise doesn't have to be restricted to Hawaii and that Yuna is a good Ideal Hero character.
Stitch & Ai also received mixed responses. One side of the fandom liked having a TV series whose art style better resembles the original works in the franchise, has better action and more likable characters (both old and new) by comparison, and has a better-handled plot that heeds closer to the original film. The other side disliked it for separating Stitch from Lilo again and giving another Canon Foreigner human girl companion to replace her, also believing that the new human characters themselves were too similar to the original ones and yet are not as substantially flawed or developed as the originals, and some of the new elements that this series introduced like Stitch'sdestructionform were needless additions. Then there are those who thought that the show's setting is a good idea for an animated series, but the involvement and integration of the Lilo & Stitch universe were completely unnecessary. All that said, the continuation of these "post-Lilo" spin-offs remains a point of contention among fans.
Crazy Is Cool: Stitch, the purest definition of this trope. He is a living blue furball of insanity, revels in it, and often gets away with it all. He manages to escape by force, then hijacks a ship and crash lands on Hawaii, coming out with a maniacal cackle. In the original movie, even after he Took a Level in Kindness with a heavy chunk of Character Development, he rescues Lilo by using lava and diesel from a truck to skyrocket towards Gantu's ship, crash through the window, then proceed to throw him out of it, all while proclaiming himself to also be "cute and fluffy". And let's not mention when he's on caffeine; Lilo regularly makes side-comments throughout the franchise when he's acting particularly hyperactive that she won't be giving him any more coffee.
Critical Backlash: The Asian spin-offs have received a small bit of this. As a result of the huge backlash towards the Stitch! anime and Stitch & Ai, both shows' fans have been defending and trying to rally support for them, accusing the Lilo & Stitch fans of being obnoxious with their hatred and Fanon Discontinuity toward the spin-offs. It helps that it's been years since either show ended and no new TV shows in the franchise have been made since the Chinese series.
Cult Classic: While the original film was both a critical and commercial success for its time, and Stitch still remains one of Disney's most merchandised characters, the franchise never quite reached the same kind of mainstream success as other Disney franchises either before or since, such as The Lion King and Frozen. Being a very unusual property that was released during one of Disney Animation's commercially weakest periods, combined with Disney's own blunders in handling the sequels and spin-offs, prevented Lilo & Stitch from being seen as more than a niche franchise.
This is stretching the YMMV term quite a bit, but some fans add Lilo's surname (Pelekai) to Stitch's name to signify the closeness he has with his ʻohana and to portray him as being more like a brother to Lilo and Nani instead of just a pet like he's legally adopted as. (The franchise already portrays him as a brother figure to the Pelekai sisters through his interactions with them, primarily Lilo.) Even fewer fans surname some of the other experiments "Jookiba" after their creator (sometimes giving Stitch this surname as well).
Girl Stitch / Pink Stitch: Experiment 624/Angel, being a pink, female experiment who bears a strong feminine resemblance to Stitch and is his love interest. This is more used by those who are not as aware of (or do not like) the character or the showsshe appears in.
Bara Stitch / Himbo Stitch: "Anthrofied" versions of Stitch that briefly trended in January and February 2021 within the Furry Fandom, where furry artist MineDoo's drawing of an anthropomorphic Stitchnote in this case, since Stitch is technically an anthropomorphic creature to begin with, "anthropomorphic Stitch" refers to him getting a more humanoid body build; "anthro Stitch" has already been drawn by other artists well before the trend happened with a thick neck and a buff chest as if He Is All Grown Up inspired several other furry artists to draw their own anthro versions of him.
Also, the idea of Lilo becoming a genetic experiment of her own, which sadly never happened in The Series. (No, "Swapper" doesn't count because that was her being in Stitch's body.) The most common traits of an experiment Lilo include her experiment body resembling that of Stitch and Angel's,note although a number of fans want to deviate away from that body design and make a more unique one for Lilo her fur color usually being either red, brown, or orange,note red being the primary color of her most famous muʻumuʻu, brown being her skin color, and orange being her favorite color according to "Swapper". and her maintaining her long black human hair as an experiment for some reason.
Stitch! and/or Stitch & Ai for separating Lilo and Stitch, replacing her with Canon ForeignerExpies of her, replacing all those characters' voice actors, and (in the anime's case) changing up the returning characters for the worse.note Although Stitch & Ai isn't immune from that complaint either, with Stitch's destructionform in that series becoming a major point of contention for a good number of fans. The fact that Chris Sanders has zero participation with those shows makes this matter worse. That said, most of the Fanon Discontinuity is relegated to the West, especially in North America, and as Critical Backlash above notes, there are those out there trying to defy those who invoke this trope.
For some purist viewers, damn near everything that's not from the original film is this. These viewers even go as far as to believe that Stitch is the only genetic experiment that Jumba ever made, taking Jumba's clear-as-day lie at his trial with the Last-Second Word Swap at face value and forgetting/deliberately ignoring that Stitch's experiment number is supposed to imply that he's not the only one. Even Disney Infinity subtly does this.note Avalanche Software made it that Pleakley was still working for the United Galactic Federation in the Stitch's Tropical Rescue Toy Box Game (when the Plorgonarian was actually exiled to Earth and stripped of his status in the film), had the Pelekai residence appear in its original form (before the house was destroyed by Jumba and Stitch) in the Lilo's Tropical Sky skydome, and never included a reference to any part of the franchise post-original film, even going as far as to erase Splodyhead from the red pillow onFred's "Blue Ninja Bed" when it appeared in Disney Infinity 3.0 while leaving Stitch's face on the blue pillow. (That said, one of Stitch's quotes where he demands someone to make him a sandwich might be a very subtle reference to Reuben, unless it's referring to Lilo's habit of feeding Pudge a sandwich. He also speaks some Tantalog that we've heard in The Series and other works, but not in the original film.)
As with most Disney franchises based on films in the Animated Canon, the original film is easily the most fondly remembered and the best-written part of the franchise. The sequel material were popular back in the franchise's heyday, but apart from Angel and the occasional merch of other experiments, the original film is still the one that gets most of the attention. Not only that, puristic fans get rather angered when the sequel material is explicitly incorporated into Disney's crossover media (especially with Angel in Disney Magic Kingdoms, Disney Emoji Blitz, and Disney Speedstorm).
If you expand it to general continuities, then most of the fanbase prefer the original Western/Lilo continuity over all the Asian spin-offs, which remain obscure to most Westerners. Even to this day, many Westerners who hear about the spin-offs for the first time are surprised that this franchise is still getting new content all the way to The New '20s, despite it being generally seen as niche and well past its heyday.
Mainly with How to Train Your Dragon for sharing Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois as directors/writers,note although Sanders only co-wrote and co-directed the first film, with DeBlois writing and directing the sequels by himself especially since Toothless takes a lot of traits from Stitch. Lots of crossoverFan Art of Stitch and Toothless can be found on the web. Plus, after the official reveal and release of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Stitch and Toothless's respective Distaff Counterpart mates Angel and the Light Fury have also got involved in such fan art.
Also with Pokémon, since the experiments look like they were inspired by the Pokémon creatures.
Also with Moana, since it is also a Disney animated film set in Polynesia. Before the cast was announced, many fans were hoping for Auliʻi Cravalho to star in the role of Nani Pelekai in the live-action remake. (Cravalho was asked but she had to turn it down due to other obligations.)
As of 2020, Sonic the Hedgehog is also in the list, since the movie released that year also features a blue, quirky, superpowered alien fugitive finding a friend on Earth, the main difference being that, while Stitch was originally evil, Sonic was always good.
Also with The Iron Giant, since the main characters of both films are lonely, friendless child protagonists who befriend aliens from outer space. Also helps that both films are equally beloved in Japan.
Foe Yay Shipping: Despite the fact that Mertle canonically hates Lilo just for being weird and takes delight in bullying her, that hasn't stopped some fans from pairing the two together.
Japan loves Stitch. This really cannot be understated. Stitch often features more prominently than the likes of Mickey Mouse on Disney merchandise and publicity. The show is also so popular there that an anime spin-off was made and aired on over-the-air TV in Japan, unlike what happens to most Disney series.note Unlike their feature film output, most of Disney's shows wind up airing on cable in the country, which isn't very popular in Japan compared to most of the world. There have only been four other Disney shows that aired on terrestrial television: Little Einsteins, Sofia the First, Elena of Avalor and Mickey and the Roadster Racers, all of which aired on TV Tokyo and targeted younger audiences than Stitch! did. Said anime even got more episodes and seasons than the first series. Japan also got a version of The Enchanted Tiki Room with Stitch in a lead role and a 2020 manga spin-off featuring him where he somehow ends up in the country's Sengoku era.
Also, Angel is extremely popular over there as well, where she has something of an Ascended Extra status. Not that she isn't popular anywhere else. Reuben also is fairly popular, too, with Reuben Day (June 25) celebrated in that country about as much as Angel Day (June 24).
The franchise is also quite popular in Russia, with a decent Fan Art scene for the experiments other than Stitch (arguably more so compared to the Anglosphere). Tellingly, there is a Russian Lilo & Stitchwiki over on Fandom, and the Russian version of WikiFur has several articles relating to franchise-related topics, whereas the English WikiFur currently has just two.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Let's see: it's a franchise about a girl and her alien buddy in Hawaii, with said alien being the 626th of such creatures which the TV series is dedicated to capturing, the creatures are tamed with The Power of Friendship, and Japan utterly adores that alien. When news broke out that Pokémon Sun and Moon would be set in Alola, a Hawaii counterpart, and that the plot would revolve around alien life-forms the likes of which the franchise has never seen before in the Ultra Beasts, it may as well have been free publicity for Lilo & Stitch.
LGBT Fanbase: The heavy focus on found family and embracing the things that make you unique, coupled with Pleakley being gender non-conforming has long resonated with the LGBT community. Even more when same-sex marriage was legalized in all fifty states on June 26, 2015, or 6/26, in line with Stitch's experiment number in month-day format, which has led to some members of the community adopting Stitch as something of a mascot. (More on all this below.)
Magic Franchise Word: The film popularized ʻohana outside of Hawaii, and the word remains strongly tied to the franchise to this day.
Magnificent Bastard: Cobra Bubbles is a stern, unflappable agent of a mysterious organization that deals in extraterrestrial affairs, and masks his true colors beneath a public guise of social work. Spending the first film concerned for young Lilo's safety and astutely picking out all the ways she's being neglected, Cobra eventually works to keep her family together by using aliens' love for rules to keep Stitch free from capture and reunited with Lilo. Having once convinced an invading alien force to spare Earth via lying that mosquitoes were an endangered species, Cobra also sets a solid trap for the diabolical Hämsterviel in the first released/second chronological sequel film, almost destroying the villain even at the cost of endangering Stitch's fellow experiments. Cobra's ruthlessness and ingenuity continue into the television series, where he utilizes the experiments as espionage tools and schemes to keep the public unaware of an approaching apocalypse so as to preserve peace while he spirits away key people to safety. Always cool and rarely caught off-guard, Cobra stood out in the zany cast as a deadly serious protector of Earth.
A lot of Fan Art show that many fans of Stitch misremember his ear notches being near the tip of his left ear and near the base of his right ear. It's actually the other way around. Even Disney themselves make this mistake in some promotional material and merchandise, usually by horizontally flipping his image (to cut production costs when using their clip art of him), and this error has even extended to some of their own produced or licensed works such as Disney Sorcerer's Arena.
Depending on the Artist, Stitch has been depicted with the ear notches in other spots (or sometimes without them at all), with round notches instead of his actual triangular ones, without the dark blue markings on the back of his ear tips, with a differently shaped or even colored back marking, with his aqua countershading missing between his lower lip and chin, with light blue paw pads instead of their proper dark blue ones, with only three digits on each foot (and sometimes even fingers) instead of four, and so on. In short, Stitch is a really difficult character to draw correctly, and the same can apply to the other experiments.
Some fans falsely remember Stitch calling his Love Interest Angel (Experiment 624) as his "boochiboo"; he actually pronounces it as "boojiboo". It was actually Lilo—who is not a native speaker of the experiments' language Tantalog—who mispronounced it as "boochiboo" in The Series episode "Angel".
Memetic Bystander: The attractive, blonde lifeguard Nani tries to apply for in the first film. While she didn't quite gain the Recurring Extra status of the Ice Cream Man, her being the most willing of Nani's potential employers to give her a chance before Stitch ruins the mood, combined with her highly sexualized character model, has garnered her quite a fanbase.
Happy 624/Angel Day!" / "Happy 625/Reuben Day!" / "Happy (Experiment) 627 Day!" / "Happy Leroy Day!" ExplanationAdditionally, core fans in the Lilo & Stitch fandom tends to celebrate other Experiments' days around "Stitch Week", which begins June 21 (the anniversary of the original film's release). Angel (X-624) has June 24, Reuben (X-625) has June 25, Experiment 627 has June 27, and Leroy (whose debut film actually premiered on June 23) tended to have his day celebrated on either June 28 or 29 depending on a fan's viewpoint (either he's X-628 because of Japanese and Disneyland Paris merchandise or X-629 because a pod of an X-628 already existed before Leroy was made in his film; for the record, Stitch & the Samurai has now established 629 to be Leroy's number).
Alternate versions of Stitch have become memetic in their own ways:
Muscle Stitch ExplanationFan Art of Stitch drawn with a muscular build, with an accompanying screencap of a Google search suggestion entry for "muscle Stitch" that shows a drawing of a muscular Stitch next to stock photos of people experiencing pain on their sides (i.e. a side cramp).
Bara/Himbo Stitch ExplanationSeparately, on January 22, 2021, furry artist MineDootweeteda colored sketch of a barazoku (i.e. muscular and slightly chubby) anthropomorphic Stitch, with the artist themselves implying that they were inspired by the Lilo & Stitch drawings of fellow furry artist Maxpany. (Note: Account contains NSFW content.) This led to several other furry artists making their own drawings of "bara Stitch", "himbo Stitch" or other anthropomorphic interpretations of Stitch or even other experiments like Reuben.
Leather Daddy Stitch ExplanationDuring Disneyland's first ever Pride Nite in 2023, the Stitch costumed character wore a leather jacket and hat evoking the LGBTQIA+ community's "leather daddies". Note that unlike Muscle Stitch and Bara/Himbo Stitch, this was from an official Disney event.
Moe: Lilo is a cute and quirky little girl with big brown eyes.
Movement Mascot: Stitch became a minor LGBTQ+ mascot on June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court of the United States declared in a 5-4 decision to Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry in the United States as guaranteed by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As the date of the decision matched Stitch's experiment number when written in the MDY date format that the U.S. (and most of English-speaking Canada) uses (6/26), the original film's openly gay co-writer/co-director Dean DeBlois made and shared a drawing of Stitch waving a rainbow pride flag and Lilo's rag doll Scrump waving a flag with the gold equal sign on a navy blue square logo of the Human Rights Campaign, which led to other Stitch fans doing the same, sometimes with other characters including other experiments. (e.g. Angel waving the transgender pride flag.) Now every "Stitch Day" on June 26, there will be Fan Art of Stitch celebrating LGBTQ+ pride or there will be an LGBTQ+ symbol added somewhere in the artwork. Disney has noticed this and has released a good amount of LGBTQ+ merchandise featuring him for Pride Month.
Only the Creator Does It Right: For a number of fans regarding the animated shows and films; if Chris Sanders isn't involved with an animated work as the voice of Stitch, then it's not "good". (In fact, several fans also have issues with Ben Diskin's Stitch voice because [to those fans] it doesn't sound as genuinely cute, charming, or enthusiastic as Sanders's.)
Pop Culture Holiday: The Lilo & Stitch fandom celebrates June 26 as "Stitch Day", because the date corresponds with Stitch's experiment number (626) in month-day format (6/26). Disney has since embraced this with some promotions, albeit as "626 Day" instead.
It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Some fans of the franchise have expressed burnout toward Stitch due to his popularity and unrelenting overrepresentation over anyone and everyone else in the franchise, going as far as to voice displeasure towards the 2021 rebrand of the franchise to just his name. While they don't deny that Stitch has always gotten and will continue to get the most attention, it seems that, as of The New '20s, Disney seems to almost always avoid making or licensing merchandise of any character who isn't him, especially in licensed products such as the Funko Pop! figures, and (except in Japan) outright refuse to make any merchandise of the sequel material's characters apart from Angel and, in Europe, Leroy.
Popular with Furries: Stitch's cute, animal-looking design makes him popular with furries. The same applies to some of the other experiments, such as Reuben and Angel. This is not without precedent either; Chris Sanders has ties with the Furry Fandom, and when the original 2002 film won the Ursa Major Awardnote an annual award honoring the best of the furry fandom, similar to sci-fi and fantasy's Hugo Awards for Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture, Sanders accepted the certificate in person. This is not even getting into the brief "himbo Stitch" trend that got attention in the fandom in January 2021.
Sacred Cow: Lilo Pelekai is increasingly attaining this status thanks to her being neglected quite heavily in much of the franchise's marketing and due to the Eastern-produced shows that replace her,note Though the latter reason applies more towards the part of the fandom who do not approve of the Eastern spin-offs. as well as finding her to have one of the most realistic depictions of emotional trauma in animation history. Fans even came up to Lilo's defense on Tumblr and Twitter in 2020 (causing the film to trend on the latter) after an animator called Lilo & Stitch one of Disney's "worst" films because of Lilo. Her status as this trope has only further increased with Disney's silent rebrand of the franchise, with merchandise and promotions that have been consisting downplaying her or excluding her altogether in favor of giving Stitch increasingly more of the already huge amount of attention he has.
Most fan art of an adult Lilo tend to portray her as a fit and attractive young woman with a slim body and full lips much like her sister, usually wearing midriff-revealing clothing or a bikini. Contrast the canonical depictions of the adult Lilo in The Series episode "Skip" and the anime episode "Lilo", which portray her more modestly, wearing clothes that make her look like a responsible adult and having the same mouth that her younger self and her late father have, never developing fuller lips.
Even though Stitch is canonically completely incapable of growing any taller or even aging, he has also been drawn with a humanoid/more anthropomorphic body shape of either an athletic young adult, a bodybuilder, or even a muscular yet slightly chubby "himbo", while still maintaining his overall alien genetic experiment looks (blue fur, claws, head, et cetera). Some of the other experiments have also been drawn like this, but they're much rarer. Anthro interpretations of Stitch even became a minor trend on Twitter in January and February 2021 with a lot of Fan Art of a "himbo" Stitch, with some Reuben and Leroy here and there, being made and shared by primarily Furry Fandom artists.
Angel's design and personality make her ripe for this trope. It's not uncommon to see Rule 34 art of her with an even more feminine body than she already has.
More like "Spin-off-itis", but although the Lilo-free spin-offs have their fans, each passing one that has been having been met with increasing backlash from what's left of the franchise's core fanbase, primarily because they destroy the point of the franchise's message about friends and family not separating ("Nobody gets left behind or forgotten," and all that entails) by separating Stitch from Lilo and leaving her behind, and also rendering his Character Development from the original Lilo & Stitch continuity almost entirely pointless. It doesn't help that they were primarily made to appeal to the audiences of the countries they were made in.
This went further in 2020 with Stitch & the Samurai, a manga spin-off where Stitch ends up in feudal Japan and befriends an adult male Japanese warlord, a concept that some of the fans find so ridiculous even by the franchise's own standards that it doesn't even work as a parody. The temperaments towards one simmered down a bit later though as some people who read the story found it to be entertaining in its own right, and others noted how its author/illustrator—who tragically died during the year of its English publication at just 46—really did care about the character and shouldn't be given the blame for what Disney is ultimately at fault for. It helps that, unlike the Eastern shows, it definitively takes place in an Alternate Universe. Still, fans remain annoyed on just how Stitch keeps getting spin-off after unnecessary spin-off.
Smurfette Breakout: Among the experiments, Angel. She isn't the only female experiment, but the vast majority of the known ones are male or presumed male. Yet, despite having appeared in only two episodes of the first TV series, she stood out due to her adorable Stitch-based design and her Heel–Face Turn in her eponymous debut episode. This eventually led to her more frequent appearances in the anime, appearances as a costumed character at the Disney Theme Parks (and her costume got redesigned a few years later to better match up with the Stitch costume), several video game appearances (most notably Disney Magic Kingdoms and Disney Speedstorm, the latter which even brought back her original voice actress), and merchandise of her sold worldwide (even in the United States where the Stitch! anime didn't even last a week, even going off the air there just before her first full episode).
Ships That Pass in the Night: Nani and the lifeguard has become a surprisingly popular ship amongst the fandom despite the two barely interacting at all (only doing so once in the first film), and the former already having a Love Interest in the form of David.
Theme Pairing: Lilo has occasionally been shipped with Mac from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends due to a couple of similarities they have — being bullied and having a crazy non-human blue friend, among others.
Toy Ship: Lilo gets involved in this trope quite a bit. And since Stitch technically is a young creaturenote director's commentary for the original film says that he was only two months old at the time and frequently behaves like a child, he counts, too. Other young human characters like Mertle and Victoria also get involved in this trope to a much lesser extent.
Ugly Cute: Stitch, most of the aliens, and some of the humans could qualify. Chris Sanders loves this trope.
considers Stitch to be a major detriment to the film and distracting from Lilo and Nani's plights because Stitch "spends 99%" of the film causing the Pelekai sisters' lives to be worse than they already were.note It got worse after Stitch's Great Escape! opened to horrid reception with a poorly-received interpretation of Stitch, with many older Disney fans, especially a portion of American Disney Theme Parks fans who fondly remember SGE!'s predecessor, holding a misplaced grudge against the character solely because of that ride. There's also a contingent of Lilo & Stitch fans who feel burned out by Stitch because they feel that he's become overexposed in merchandise and marketing, especially at the expense of nearly every other character in the franchise, including even Lilo, the other titular character..svg){kind=small}
