Cilan (anime)

Cilan is one of the Gym Leaders of Striaton City Gym. In addition to his Gym Leader duties, he is also an A-class Pokémon Connoisseur; capable of seeing the compatibility and closeness between Pokémon and their trainers. After his defeat by Ash Ketchum, he decided to join the young trainer and Iris on their journey through the Unova region. His two siblings, Chili and Cress are also Gym Leaders.

Appearance
He's a tall, slender young man with slicked back chartreuse green hair with a four-pointed tuft that sticks up, and grass green eyes. He wears a long sleeved white shirt under a black waistcoat, black straight leg pants, a white apron, and flat brown shoes with golden buckles like his brothers do. He also wears a green bowtie, corresponding with his hair and eye color, and his choice of Grass-type Pokémon.

Personality
Cilan is a very eccentric boy. He enjoys the intricacies of life, making him happy basically all the time. His connoisseur catchphrase is "It's evaluating time!" Furthermore, he often exclaims a paraphrased version of said catchphrase during varied situations. For example, when he was interrogating a Scrafty he declared "It's detective time!" Cilan is an empiricist, however his mind has opened more due to his adventures with Ash. Being a Gym Leader, Cilan is an adept battler, he is also an excellent chef; providing food for the group which always receives complements from Ash, Iris and Pokémon. He is also shown to be an excellent detective. Both Stephan and Georgia have been impressed by Cilan's evaluating skills and even Burgundy (although she would never admit it out loud) acknowledges his skill as an A-class connoisseur.

In addition to being a connoisseur, Cilan is also a subway expert, a position which he dubs a "Metro Connoisseur." He shows not only an amazing amass of knowledge on subways and everything related, but also takes pure delight in the efficiency and overall being of the subway, proved when he marvels over a subway train exhibit, only to be dragged away from it by Meowth while shouting, "But I want to look at the pretty trains some more!"

When one of his Pokemon evolves, Cilan was extremely happy and very excited and he excitedly yells "And that means! Evolution time has begun!" This is demonstrated when his Dwebble evolves into a Crustle after it was struggling to keep up from Jessie's Woobat's Gust attack especially its newly learned Rock Wrecker when it was unleashed to attack Woobat by surprise.

Biography
Cilan battled and lost to Ash Ketchum when the young trainer challenged his gym, impressed with Ash's fighting style and spirit, he joins Ash after he asks him so many questions about his journey experience, leaving his two brothers, Cress and Chili, to continue running the Gym in his absence. He gains a strong rival in Burgundy, who he defeated prior to joining Ash and co. During his travels in the episode, A Home for Dwebble!, Cilan witnesses a wild Dwebble crafting its rock shell as his home before it was stolen by three Dwebble bullies. He also became panicked when it accidentally hits his Pansage with a single rock on its head when Dwebble uses Slash at Ash's Pikachu. After his Pansage recovers from its fever, Cilan makes a bait for the three Dwebble using his Pokemon food, allowing Dwebble to attack each of them one by one. After Dwebble retrieves its home, it decides to join with Cilan, which he happily captures it. He also captures a Stunfisk while Ash also captures a Palpitoad while trying to get a weed as an antidote to remove the poison from their Pokemon. He also has a fear of Purrloin because of something a Purrloin did to him back when he was younger which he doesn't like to talk about.

Cilan had the pleasure of battling the Subway Bosses Ingo and Emmet alongside Ash. He also helped his brother Chili find his own Battle style. Apparently, he had a bone to pick with Skyla because of her giving out free gym badges to other trainers without actually battling them. Angered, Cilan challenges her to a battle to teach her how a true Gym Leader has to be. Unfortunately, he lost to Skyla's Swanna at the end. Cilan also managed to cosplay as Elesa during the Bell of Wishes Festival contest, but unfortunately he lost that as well. He also helped a little girl named Marigold select her partner Pokémon in Clash of the Connoisseurs!. He met Dawn in All for the Love of Meloetta! in which the two of them battled each other.

After the event of Team Rocket's Operation Tempest and Team Plasma, he went back to Professor Juniper's lab from where he and Iris decided to travel to Kanto with Ash. All of them traveled with addition to Alexa, facing new challenges in each of the islands. However, after their adventure in Decolore Islands, he and Iris decided to stop traveling with Ash and they say their goodbyes as both himself and Iris travel to Johto by riding a train to Vermilion City.

In a special episode, Cilan was travelling to Johto and he was seen fishing in the lake and just caught a wild Gyarados. He attempts to capture it, using Pansage in battle but the Gyarados seriously injures it. Cilan also meets Brock who is now a Pokemon Doctor in-training which Ash and Dawn previously mentions him on their journey. After Pansage's recovery, Cilan used it again to battle Gyarados who is now in rampage and to see this Gyarados was hurt. His Pansage manage to calm it with Grass Whistle allowing Brock to heal Gyarados's injury by spraying with a Potion. After the incident, both Brock and Cilan parted ways and he nearly forgot to introduce his name to him much like the latter did before him.

Voice actors

 * English: Jason Griffith
 * Japanese: Mamoru Miyano
 * Italian: Davide Albano
 * Dutch: Jurjen van Loon
 * Mandarin: Yu Zhengsheng
 * Finnish: Petrus Kähkönen
 * Brazilian Portuguese: Alex Minei
 * Spanish: Fernando Cabrera
 * Latin America Spanish: Bruno Coronel

Achievements

 * Don George Battle Tournament: Top 8 [Loses to Luke]
 * Donamite: Top 8 [Loses to Stephan]
 * Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup; Top 4 [Loses to Trip]

Trivia

 * Brock and Cilan have some similarities. They are both gym leaders of the first gym in their region who eventually travel with Ash hoping to reach new heights in their dreams. They're both cooks and seems to be the group navigator. The only major difference is that Cilan doesn't flirt like Brock does with almost every female he meets. However, some girls actually take an interest in Cilan and his brothers, Chili and Cress, as seen in Triple Leaders, Team Threats! and Dreams by the Yard Full! when the girls in the restaurant stare at them dreamily and cheer them on during Ash's gym battle.
 * Cilan has multiple brothers like Brock, but Cilan and his brothers are fraternal triplets.
 * It is revealed in BW046 that Cilan has a fear of Purrloin, when he states that one of them did something terrible to him to which he refuses to talk about as he doesn't want to remember it. His fear is also shown in the beginning of MS014 and BW082.
 * Cilan's name derives from Cilantro, a plant sometimes used as a seasoning.
 * Cilan's Japanese voice is Miyano Mamoru, who also voiced Riku in the Kingdom Hearts series, Light Yagami in the Death Note anime, Tamaki Suoh in the Ouran High School Host Club anime, Death the Kid in the Soul Eater anime, Ling Yao in the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime, Ignis in Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Shin Kamiya in the movie Tekken: Blood Vengeance.
 * Cilan's English voice actor, Jason Griffith is best known for voicing the main protagonist, Sonic the Hedgehog and his rival and anti-hero, Shadow the Hedgehog in the anime, Sonic X and the late 2000's of the Sonic video game series until 2010 where he was replaced by both Roger Craig Smith and Kirk Thornton respectively as their current voices in English in later Sonic games.
 * Interestingly, Cilan's accent when speaking to Ash and Iris is much like Sonic.