- For the variant appearing in the games, see Cilan.
Cilan is a main character appearing in Pokémon the Series, who is one of the three 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, he decided to join the young trainer and Iris on their journey through the Unova region. His two brothers, Chili and Cress, are also Gym Leaders.
Appearance[]
- This section, or a part of it, has been transcluded from Cilan; any changes involving it should be made there instead. /
Cilan is a tall, slender young man with fair skin and 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 superbly eccentric boy. He enjoys the intricacies of life, making him cheerful almost all his parts in the anime. His connoisseur catchphrase is "It's evaluating time!". Furthermore, he often exclaims a paraphrased version of the said catchphrase during varied situations. For example, when he was interrogating a Scrafty he declared "It's detective time!".
Cilan is an empiricist. However, he is more open due to his adventures with Ash. Being a Gym Leader, Cilan is adept in battling his challengers and always aim to impart knowledge to challengers. He is also an excellent chef who always prepared food for the group. He always receives complements from Ash, Iris and the 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 acknowledges his skill as an A-class connoisseur (although she would never admit it out loud due to her dislike for him).
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 amount of knowledge regarding subways and every detail related, but also takes pure delight in the efficiency and the overall control of the subway. This was proved when he marveled over a subway train exhibition, 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 Pokémon evolves, Cilan was extremely delightful and very excited as he excitedly yells "And that means! Evolution time has begun!" This was demonstrated when his Dwebble evolved into Crustle after it was struggling to keep up from a Gust attack from Jessie's Woobat, especially its newly learnt Rock Wrecker move when it was unleashed to attack Woobat by surprise.
Etymology[]
The name Cilan comes from "cilantro", a type of herb.
His Japanese name, Dento, may come from 田 (den, field) and the name of dent corn, following the corn theme of his brother's Japanese names and the plant-based naming of most characters.
Skills[]
Cilan is a connoisseur in a lot of things — which amazes a lot of people, except for Iris, who gets annoyed sometimes. Also, Cilan is a skillful cook, fisher, and knows a lot about Pokémon battles while being a good battler as well, especially being a Gym Leader. Cilan is also shown to have an amazing amount of knowledge about Pokémon, much like Brock did.
Relationships[]
Family[]
Chili and Cress[]
Cilan has a strong relationships with his brothers as they don't fight a lot. Growing up, Cilan and his brothers would practice their partners moves. Before traveling with his friends, Cilan ran the Striaton Gym and a restaurant with his brothers which showed how close they are as siblings.
Friends[]
Ash[]
When Cilan first meet Ash, he was impressed on how strong his relationship was with his Pikachu. After losing to Ash in their Gym battle, Cilan asked a lot of question about his methods of raising his Pokémon and battle strategies as he was impressed with them. Because of Ash's passion for Pokémon training, Cilan choose to travel with him as he knew it could help him become a great Pokémon Connoisseur someday. Cilan and Ash are very close friends as they respect each other's for who they are, although he gets annoyed with his habits sometimes. They part ways to continue making their dreams a reality when they reached Kanto. Despite being apart, Cilan knows that his friendship with Ash will remain, which was shown when he reunited with him in Galar.
Iris[]
Cilan is great friends with Iris as he respect her knowledge for Dragon-Type Pokémon. Also, Cilan would give Iris advice whenever she needed it, much like how Brock did for Misty. They part ways when they arrived in Johto to continue their journeys to make their dreams come true.
Dawn[]
Cilan respect Dawn both as a Pokémon Coordinator and a good friend. When Cilan battled Dawn, he was impressed how she showed off her Pokémon. However, she was stunned by how Cilan began evaluate her Pokémon. They part ways after the tournament they enter was done.
Rival[]
Burgundy[]
Cilan had a battle with Burgundy and beat her. Little did he know, Cilan left Burgundy hurt and decided to get even with him. While traveling, Cilan meet Burgundy again as she became a Connoisseur herself. Despite their rivalry, Cilan has been nothing but nice to Burgundy, although she gets upset with him for it but does show some respect for him sometimes.
Pokémon[]
Pansage[]
Pansage is the first Pokémon Cilan has ever gotten and cares very much for him. Cilan and Pansage are both partners and very close friends. They enjoy doing stuff together and would stand up for each other no matter what. Whenever his partner was in trouble, Cilan would be there to help or save Pansage and he would do the same for him.
Crustle[]
Cilan first meet Crustle as a Dwebble when he with his friends saw it make its home. When it got its home stolen, Cilan offer words of encouragement to help Crustle get its home back which help a lot and his words gave him the strength to get it back. When Crustle decided to join him, Cilan accepted its request thus becoming partners and friends. After evolving, Cilan had Crustle help out in a lot of battles and its his ace battler.
Stunfisk[]
Stunfisk had first meet Cilan when he was fishing and caught Stunfisk just using a fishing rod. Although they don't have much of a relationship, Cilan and Stunfisk do care about each other. They are also good friends with each other.
Biography[]
Pokémon the Series: Black & White[]
Cilan battled and lost to Ash Ketchum when the young trainer challenged his gym. Impressed by Ash's fighting style and spirit, he joins Ash on his journey after asking him a humongous amount of questions about his experience raising in Pokémon. He then leaves his two brothers, Cress and Chili, to continue running the Gym in his absence. He gained a strong rival named Burgundy, who he defeated a while before joining Ash and co. During his travels in the episode, A Home for Dwebble!, Cilan witnessed a wild Dwebble crafting its rock shell as its 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 while Dwebble was aiming a Slash attack at Ash's Pikachu. After his Pansage recovered from its fever, Cilan made a bait for the three Dwebble using his Pokémon food, allowing Dwebble to attack each of them one by one. After Dwebble retrieved its home, it decided to join Cilan and he happily captures it. He also captured a Stunfisk while Ash also captures a Palpitoad while trying to get a weed as an antidote to remove the poison for their Pokémon. He also has a fear of Purrloin because a Purrloin attacked him when he was a kid. He tripped over it, and without a Pokémon to protect himself, he suffered a long and furious Fury Swipes from that Purrloin, which made him look slightly different from his brothers.
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. Furious, Cilan challenged her to a battle, wanting to teach her how a true Gym Leader should 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, a Foongus 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 which he and Iris decided to travel to Kanto with Ash. All of them traveled with addition of Alexa. They faced 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 the Johto region by riding a train to Vermilion City.
In a special episode of BW, Cilan was travelling to Johto and he was seen fishing in the lake. He attempted to capture a reowned wild Gyarados , using Pansage in battle but the Gyarados deeply injured it. Cilan also met Brock (an old friend of Ash) who is now a Pokémon Doctor-in-training whom Ash and Dawn previously mentioned him on their journey. After Pansage's recovery, Cilan used it again to battle Gyarados who is now on a rampage and sees this Gyarados was previously injured as well. His Pansage managed to calm it with Grass Whistle, allowing Brock to heal Gyarados's injury by spraying the grazed area 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.
Cilan's latest appearance is in the special episode of the XY series, The Ultimate Duo! Clemont and Cilan! where he travels to Lumiose City in the Kalos Region to enter a fishing tournament. Cilan meets Clemont who is the Gym Leader of the Lumiose City along with his younger sister, Bonnie. Cilan remarks Clemont that it is not fishing and it was a bad joke when he uses his fishing invention. He even demonstrating his evaluation skills for fishing method much to Clemont's surprise and also dislikes Clemont's love of science to which Clemont tries to be defensive and wants to know who he is. Cilan finally introduced himself to them and also teaches Bonnie how to fish which she had caught a Clawitzer who uses Aqua Jet at them. Cilan releases his Stunfisk to use Mud Shot on it who escapes the attack. Both Clemont and Bonnie are thankful to Cilan and his Stunfisk for saving them as the fishing tournament is over. Cilan finally tells them that he came to visit to the Prism Tower because he was a tower connoisseur and became surprised to know that Clemont is a Gym Leader which he finally introduced himself and Bonnie to him and Cilan also reveals to them that he is the Gym Leader of Striaton City much to Clemont's excitement since they are both Gym Leaders in their respective cities. To Cilan's excitement, he had seen the map of the subway at the Lumiose City finally demonstrating his actions for being a metro connoisseur. While Cilan explains about the automaton train, Bonnie eventually enters the empty train much to their horrible shock as the train moves and Clemont tries to chase it but fail. Arriving at the control room, the managers tells them that the controls of the train are malfunctioning and most trains are moving by itself. Cilan knows if there is no control in all trains this cause a big accident. After the trains are recovered thanks to Clemont's solution for finding out the problem, Cilan decides to aid Clemont in rescuing Bonnie inside the train. Cilan finally instructs Bonnie to press the red switch then later the blue switch. Cilan realizes that the train is ineffective until he continues to instruct Bonnie to pull the lever to stop the train which Bonnie successfully do it. Cilan and Clemont drives through the subway trolley to find Bonnie inside the train while Clemont uses his Aipom Arm to pull the switch. Upon reaching into the train, they discovered the hole in the wall until someone manage to move the train by itself. They chase the moving train, both remembered Ash when he shows his bravery, determination and risking his life on the line to save his Pokémon. This makes them both teaming up each other. Cilan instructs Bonnie to open the emergency door while Clemont uses his rocket bait in Cilan's fishing rod so that Cilan will catch Bonnie at her back while being carried by Clemont's Aipom Arm finally rescuing her. Cilan finally reveals while demonstrating his detective skills that a wild Eelektross is behind for getting the train move by using its Ion Deluge on the roof of the train so that all of the system controls of the trains are getting out of control. Bonnie eventually recognizes the sound earlier until the wild Eelektross attacks them with Ion Deluge. Clemont releases Chespin to use Pin Missile which it manages to hit it. Upon unleashing its Crush Claw, Cilan prompts to release Pansage to team up with Clemont's Chespin to unleash their Vine Whip. Cilan finally evaluates the wild Eelektross's condition which it uses Dedenne to use its Nuzzle to remove the excess of its electricity which it successfully do it.
After the incident, they finally released Eelektross into the water way before proceeding through the Prism Tower. Cilan was amazed to see the tower in sunset and they are reminded of someone they wanted to meet as a friend. Afterwards, Cilan continues to travel by going through the Master Tower in Shalour City and he finally parted ways with Clemont and Bonnie.
Pokémon Journeys: The Series[]
Cilan appeared in a flashback in PJ065. He made his cameo in PJ132 watching the final battle between Ash and Leon at the World Coronation series with his Pansage along with Alexa and Brock with both his Blissey and his Croagunk.
Cilan was also seen again as a cameo alongside with Brock when Ash had finally defeated Leon in the World Coronation series.
In PJ139, Cilan travelled alone at the Galar region and was reunited with Ash and the first time he meets Misty which is one of Ash's old travelling companions and the Gym Leader of the Cerulean City and he recognizes Misty's sisters during his travels. Cilan also recognizes Brock during his travels from Johto since he heard his name from both Ash and Misty and they noticed that Brock was suffered from a heartbreak and decided to take him to the flower fields. Brock and his heartbreak had became an easy target for a wild Hatterene to kidnapped him, leading Cilan, Ash and Misty to rescue him. They were struck from Hatterene's Psychic to keep them on hold only to be countered by Misty's Psyduck own Psychic to break the hold causing them to chase and rescue Brock who is now under Hatterene's illusionary control. They encountered a wild Hatenna who is able to break Hatterene's illusions and it was the one who rescue them when all three of them are struck from Hatterene's illusions. Cilan eventually learns that Hatterene uses the illusions of Nurse Joy and a blond cafeteria lady whom he was recently rejected to put him under mind control state he teams up with Ash to free Brock from its control, much to Misty's concern. Upon facing Brock and Hatterene, Brock sent Steelix to battle them both. Cilan released Pansage to repel Hatterene's Psystrike to rescue Ash with Bullet Seed until Brock's Steelix attacks them with Stone Edge which they dodged the move. He soon watched Ash was trying his best to free Brock from Hatterene's control while risking his life to dodge most of Hatterene's Psycho Cut until she accidentally struck Hatenna with another Psycho Cut and Brock was freed from her control. He later watched Brock treats the wild Hatenna with first aid while Ash convinces Hatterene to stop her rampage which she accepts. After the incident, Cilan had decided to part ways with Ash, Misty and Brock to go to a popular cooking event since Ash simply loved both Brock and Cilan's cooked foods.
Pokémon[]
On hand[]
Pansage ♂
Released[]
Temporarily[]
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
- Hindi: Saumya Daan (Cartoon Network dub)
- Russian: Diomid Vinogradov
- Czech: Pavel Dytrt
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 nurturing careers. They are both great chefs and seemed to be the group navigators. The only major difference is that Cilan does not flirt like Brock does with almost every female he meets. However, some girls actually took 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 stared at them dreamily and cheered them on during Ash's gym battle.
- Cilan has multiple brothers like Brock, but Cilan and his brothers are fraternal triplets.
- Both men became stronger when they were very competitive during Pokémon battles only to be surpassed by Brock during his Gym battle against Kiawe.
- It is revealed in Purrloin: Sweet or Sneaky? that Cilan has a fear of Purrloin, when he stated that one of them did something terrible to him to which he refused to talk about as he doesn't want to remember it. His fear is also shown in the beginning of Pokémon The Movie - Black: Victini and Reshiram and Pokémon The Movie - White: Victini and Zekrom and Clash of the Connoisseurs!. He revealed his story with the Purrloin to Ash and Iris at the end of BW127: Cilan and the Case of the Purrloin Witness!, although the exact story was not revealed to fans just yet.
- Cilan's fear of Purrloin and refusal to talk about what happened is another similarity to Brock in regards to the latter part, as Brock has never revealed what happened between himself and Professor Ivy.
- Cilan's name derives from Cilantro, a plant sometimes used as a seasoning. His Japanese name, "Dent", is from "dent corn".
- 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 2000s 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.
- Cilan is the first major male character to be from Unova.
- Cilan is the first major male character other than Ash to:
- Have caught or received an Electric-type Pokémon.
- Have caught or received a pure Grass-type Pokémon.
- Have caught or received a member or more from the Generation V group.
- Have a Pokémon that can't evolve.
- Cilan has an unfriendly rivalry with Burgundy much like May and Iris who have an unfriendly rivalry with Harley and Georgia respectively. Also, Cilan has one female rival Burgundy much like May and Iris who have a female rival Solidad and Georgia respectively.
- Cilan has a fear of Purrloin, much like Misty, May and Dawn who had a fear of Gyarados, Tentacool, Plusle and Minun while they were little.