A genetically engineered, extraterrestrial life-form resembling a blue koala, he is the more prominent of the franchise's two title protagonists, the other being his human adopter and best friend Lilo Pelekai.

[5] Test audience responses to early versions of the film resulted in the change of Stitch and Jumba's relationship to that of creation and creator, respectively.

He has a limited ability to change his physical appearance, as he can retract his lower pair of arms, his claws, his antennae, and the three back spines into his body.

He was initially believed by Lilo to be a collie that had been hit by a car, while Nani thought he was a koala of a sort before they found out he was an alien genetic experiment.

The Movie, Stitch is living well, reasonably well-behaved (although still hot-tempered and mischievous) with the exiled Jumba and Pleakley in Lilo's (and her older sister Nani's) house, until he begins malfunctioning.

Jumba reveals that since Stitch was not fully charged after his creation, he will experience periodic glitches that revert to his original destructive programming, appearing to suffer from a "fit" or "seizure".

Not wanting to hurt anyone, Stitch attempts to leave Earth for a remote planet, while Lilo, Jumba, and the others desperately try to have him return so they can recharge him.

Stitch then bonds with Sparky and begins to view him as a "cousin", adopting a Hawaiian slang usage of the word that he learned from Lilo.

He also is affected by fifteen experiment powers: Amnesio wipes out his memory, being poked by Spike's spine makes him goofy, Babyfier turns him into a baby, Spooky turns into water and nearly drowns him, Lax makes him lazy, Dupe duplicates him into four (weakening his strength), Frenchfry serves him unhealthy junk food meals (along with Lilo and Pleakley) and fattens him up into a giant bowling ball, Yaarp sounds out his loud megaphone (deafening him), Snooty sucks out his mucus (effectively dehydrating him), Swirly hypnotizes him, Drowsy puts him to sleep, Houdini makes him invisible, Swapper switches him into Lilo's and then Pleakley's bodies, Bugby turns him into a bug, and Slushy freezes him.

After successfully capturing all the remaining experiments in the preceding series, the Grand Councilwoman offers Stitch the chance to become the captain of the Galactic Armada and their new flagship, The BRB (Big Red Battleship) 9000.

There they rescue Lilo, 625 (now known as Reuben), and Gantu, and fly Pleakley's carpool van back to Earth to assist the other experiments in the defeat of an army of Leroys.

With Leroy defeated, Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakley return to Earth with Lilo, realizing family is more important than spaceships, laboratories, and prestige.

At the end of the anime's second season, ~The Mischievous Alien's Great Adventure~, he acquires the necessary 43 deeds when he saves the galaxy from a rogue experiment's doomsday device, but he chooses to live with Yuna forever instead of being the ruler of the universe.

[11] She hugs him, gives him back his tiki necklace (originally given to him in Leroy & Stitch), promises to visit him again, and asks him to take good care of his new family before leaving to return to Hawaii.

He ends up in the Huangshan mountains and meets a young Chinese girl who lives there named Wang Ai Ling, who (similarly to Lilo) takes him into her family as her new pet "dog".

Through Lilo's beliefs in the Hawaiian concept of ʻohana, meaning 'family', Stitch evolves from an uncaring, destructive creature to a loving, more self-conscious being who enjoys the company of his adoptive family on Earth.

He becomes a firm believer of the ʻohana concept, and with the help of Lilo applies it to reform Jumba's 625 prior experiments, nearly all of whom Stitch treats as his "cousins".

Despite having superhuman strength and a high level of computer intelligence, Stitch is emotionally fragile and has a childlike personality beneath his "monster" appearance.

Stitch also can act as an audio amplifier, radio, and/or microphone, illustrated in the original film when he uses a finger as the needle on a record player, and the music comes out of his open mouth,[15] then again in The Series episode "The Asteroid" when he uses his ears to overhear from a distance Cobra Bubbles talking to a scientist about the threat of an asteroid close to impacting the Earth, and the sound of the discussion comes out of Stitch's mouth to allow Lilo to listen to it.

[23] He has an acute sense of smell and hearing (though the latter can lead to temporary deafness when exposed to sonic blasts) and is also dexterously skilled in hand-to-hand combat, using all four arms or just two.

[26] Stitch's greatest weakness is his inability to float or swim due to his dense molecular structure, which causes him to sink in water.

[31] This particular ability causes him to grow into a giant monstrosity with four laser-firing tentacles that sprout forward from his back, further enhancing his destructive capabilities.

[31][32][33] (This ability contradicts a deleted version of the opening scene of the original Lilo & Stitch film, which shows the then-Experiment 626 having already caused destruction in an alien city in his smaller, familiar true form.

)[26] Stitch appears as a summon in the video game, Kingdom Hearts II, making a minor influence at Hollow Bastion (in part being responsible for sending Sora and the others into Space Paranoids).

He also appears along with his homeworld, Deep Space, as a fighting partner to Ven and Aqua in the prequel Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.

Stitch makes a cameo amongst the crowd of Disney characters coming in to watch the film The Lion King 1½, appearing silhouetted in his full form.

There is a Stitch doll off to the left corner on the lowest shelf in young Jim Hawkins' room in Disney's other 2002 intergalactic film Treasure Planet.

Stitch also appears again in his spaceship by Timon and Pumbaa briefly one time in the Virtual Safari game included on Disc 2 of the 2004 The Lion King II: Simba's Pride Special Edition DVD.

While Hiro Hamada is distracting Aunt Cass as she's making hot wings, there is a photo of Mochi the cat on the wall behind him on the stairs.

[39] The Verge's Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote in a May 2017 article arguing that the character remains popular fifteen years after Lilo & Stitch's release due to his flawed nature, which made him "endlessly relatable",[40] and would outlast more recent characters who are similar in certain aspects to him such as the Minions of Universal Studios's Despicable Me franchise and Baby Groot of Marvel Studios's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.