Yamato Meison (遠野様; Tono-sama), written in Western order as Meison Yamato for the English translation, is one of the main characters of the manga spin-off Stitch & the Samurai from the Lilo & Stitch franchise.
Physical appearance[]
He is a tall, muscular man with black hair with a ponytail and mustache. He wears silver armor with purple (red in one cover) robe.
Background[]
Experiment 626, better known as Stitch, escapes the United Galactic Federation in a stolen police cruiser spaceship by using its hyperdrive to make a Blind Jump that ends up on Earth. However, instead of traveling through just space, he also travels through time; he crash-lands in Japan during the Sengoku Period, in which he meets battle-weary samurai warlord Meison Yamato. After a brief struggle, Yamato is not only impressed by Stitch's strength, but the sight of the little blue "tanuki" causes him to have a thought that he has never had before: "cute". Thus, the warlord takes in the alien, not only making Stitch part of his army, but also developing an unlikely bond.
Later, he camps with his soldiers and locks himself in an old wooden house with Stitch, which causes a lot of questions from his team. Yamato tries to cajole Stitch into letting him pet him by giving him beans and then fish, which he didn't like the smell of. Yamato assumed it was because it was raw and decided to fry it and Stitch surprisingly enjoyed eating the fried fish. But what surprised Yamato more was that Stitch was eating from his hands. With so much food, Stitch falls asleep and the samurai notices even more how cute he is, looking at his big round belly, which he would like to stroke. He lay down closer to him, mentally noticing that Stitch would not have survived on the battlefield. He almost rubs his stomach, but was interrupted by Kagemitsu Yuki, who abruptly entered the house, slamming the door loudly, thus waking up Stitch. She reports that Shibamasa's forces have taken advantage. However, during the conversation, Stitch runs away from the house and Yamato gets upset about it and says that it wasn't necessary at all.
He then leaves the house, where his soldiers notice him, Yamato declares that he will deal with Shibamasa that night. His team is preparing to go with him, but he gave the order for them to stay put, he wants to do it alone, which caused surprise among the soldiers. But before that, he decides to find Stitch, regretting that Yuki interrupted them. He found him sad on his spaceship. Yamato promised him that he would give him as much fried fish as he wanted and prepare the room for his return to the castle to make him the happiest raccoon in the world. But Stitch doesn't look too happy about the idea and he fiddles with the spaceship. When he fixed it, it took off, which puzzled Yamato. Stitch tried to fly away, but the ship broke down again and crashed. After so many tries, he still fails to fly, which makes them both sad. Yamato thinks Stitch wants to go back to heaven. At home, he draws hieroglyphs on a sheet, thinking about Stitch, he remembered his childhood, because he was also separated from his family. He orders Yuki to call all known mechanics who can fix the ship so that Stitch can return to heaven. He tells this to Stitch, who gets excited about it and jumps all over the house for joy. Yuki comes and calls for Yamato, saying that they have finished fixing the ship, but when they arrive, they are disappointed, Yamato says that it won't be able to fly.
After some time passes, he notices that Stitch is very sad from the broken hopes and hopes of returning home, Yamato mentions that Stitch no longer allows himself to be fed, after all this. Along with the musicians, he tries to cheer up Stitch by performing a folk dance, and during this, he slipped him a fried fish. Stitch smelled this and ate it with pleasure, he immediately notices that there are a lot of fish and he eats it all, leading himself to Yamato, who tries to feed Stitch from his hands, but he throws a plate in his face. Then Stitch escapes into the lake, where he was shrouded in water and, having climbed ashore, he dozed off, but he saw some lights that looked like stars from space, but the coming Yamato told him that they were fireflies. He notices that Stitch is still hungry and catches fish for him and roasts him over a fire. They talk about stars and fireflies during this, something Yamato has felt like this before. When the fish was fried, he gave it to Stitch, who happily ate it from Yamato's hands.
Yamato is shown to have made an entire playroom for Stitch to cheer him up. He asks what they will play today, but Stitch looks a little bored. Yamato says that his craftsmen have made a wooden horse that can be ridden, Stitch is skeptical and Yamato mounts it himself to show how to play with it. He again remembered his poor childhood, envious of other children that they have their own wooden horses, he vowed that he would definitely have his own one day. He then asks Stitch to try again and he agrees, riding her, having fun imagining he's flying through space. He then shows Stitch a scroll of jokes to make him laugh, which he succeeds in showing him another one. Stitch asks Yamato to read about another scroll about a girl named Ohana who has a family with a tea seller. Stitch remembers the word ʻohana, which means family, and became a little sad. Yamato comforts him and tells him that they will read another funny scroll later when he returns and he leaves.
Learning that Stitch likes rice, he climbs the mountain with him. There they reach a chestnut forest, Yamato mentions that it is his forest and says that now it is a special forest for both of them. He teaches Stitch how to get chestnuts for rice, because apparently, Stitch does not know how to do this at all and tries an uncooked chestnut, which seemed to him not tasty. Yamato picks the chestnuts very quickly, causing Stitch to become competitive and release two more hands to pick the chestnuts faster. However, this confused Yamato and he tries to find a logical explanation for this, for example, it seems to him that it is because Stitch moves too fast. But when Stitch stumbles upon the thorns, he still notices that he has four arms. He helps take them off and then decides it's time to rest and prepares to go home, but Stitch shakes the tree to make more chestnuts fall. Yamato tells him that good things only come to those who know how to wait. However, he admits that they had a lot of fun, but Yamato still doesn't understand what Stitch is.
As Yamato bathes in the river by the waterfall, he continues to wonder who Stitch is if he isn't a raccoon. At first, he assumes that he is a special kind of four-armed raccoon, but then he wonders if such a species even exists? But then he comes to the conclusion that different breeds of dogs are not similar to each other, but have the same look, so he still thinks that Stitch is a raccoon. Then, when he is sitting in his quarters, Yuki comes up to him to talk about the whole situation, she reveals that Stitch is not a raccoon at all. She says that Stitch is a demon, which infuriates Yamato and refuses to believe it, so Yuki shows him a real raccoon to compare him to Stitch, but he refuses to even look at him. Then Fraga Zambino comes and also says that Stitch is not a raccoon, Yuki thought that Zambino took her side, but he said that she was also wrong. He draws a portrait of a koala on a piece of paper and says that Stitch belongs to this species, Yuki says that this is a perfect match. Ultimately, Yamato becomes convinced that Stitch is not a demon and Yuki bows and apologizes to him and Yamato orders her to leave. Then Stitch comes and Yamato tells him that he found out that he is a koala, then Stitch releases two more hands and Fraga gets scared of this and cries because he mistook Stitch for a ghost and it turns out that Stitch is not even a koala. Then Yamato sits in the river again and thinks about it. He made a decision that even if Stitch is not a koala, then for him he will always be just Stitch. Then he hears that Jumba and Pleakley are discussing something with each other and takes them for demons.
He addresses Jumba and Pleakley as they pass by, calling them demons, which frightens them and they decide to disguise themselves, they hide in the bushes and change their clothes to traditional Japanese clothes and pretend to be ordinary travelers. However, Yamato does not believe them and Jumba decides to erase his memory with his invention, but something goes wrong and he simply knocks out Yamato. He then wakes up by a waterfall and remembers that he needs to face Shibamasa in battle and leaves. He arrives at his chambers where he orders Yuki to call all the soldiers to go and strike at Shibamasa. Yuki notices the fighting spirit in Yamato's eyes. As he was talking to Yuki, Stitch approaches them and Yamato doesn't recognize him due to Jumba erasing his memory earlier. He orders Yuki to get rid of him, she does not understand why he changed his mind, but at least returned to normal. Yuki orders the soldiers to grab the blue raccoon and during the new battle, Yamato feels the same way as before and again began to believe that Stitch is cute and wants to cuddle him. His memory returns after he has rested.
Trivia[]
- He is the first protagonist who is a male and an adult, unlike Lilo, Yuna, and Ai.
- He is also the first protagonist to not be featured in a movie or TV series.
- He is additionally the first protagonist to mistake Stitch for another animal besides a dog or koala, in this case a raccoon.
- He is also the first protagonist who lived in Earth's past in-universe instead of the modern day.
- He is the second protagonist from Japan, the first being Yuna.
- He has some similarities with Shogun from the third season of the Stitch! anime.
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