Zander

Zander

Zander (Japanese: ゼンキチ Zenkichi) is a character of the day who appeared in Caterpie's Big Dilemma.

A student of Dr. Gordon's, Zander appears to spend most of his time at the doctor's lab. It was there that the young boy met Ash and his friends, who he believed were thieves trying to sneak into the lab. When he realized that they were actually heading to Saffron City, he immediately apologized. Soon afterwards, Team Rocket broke into the doctor's lab and spilled some of Dr. Gordon's Mystery Candy Complete, which a Caterpie Zander cared for immediately ate. The Bug Pokémon immediately began to grow, until it became bigger than any human.

Caterpie escaped the lab and climbed up a tower structure, where it promptly evolved into Metapod. Suddenly, Team Rocket reappeared and kidnapped Dr. Gordon after they fed the candy to their Dustox and Cacnea. Metapod then evolved into Butterfree and, with Zander and Ash, saved the doctor from Team Rocket.

After the rescue, Butterfree shrunk down back to its normal size. Zander was proud of Butterfree for saving the doctor and vowed to train it. He then bade farewell to Ash and the others, hoping that he and Ash would meet again someday.

Pokémon

Befriended

Caterpie → Metapod → Butterfree

Debut	Caterpie's Big Dilemma
Voice actors
Japanese	Rikako Aikawa
English	Rikako Aikawa (as Caterpie and Butterfree) Eric Stuart (as Metapod)

Butterfree first appeared as a Caterpie, where Ash and his friends saw it popping out of a bush. It then used String Shot on them after it being commanded by Zander, not knowing that Ash and his friends were not thieves. After defeating Team Rocket with the help of Pikachu, Caterpie found and ate a blue ball made by Dr. Gordon, known as the "Mystery Candy Complete", causing it to continually grow, eventually causing destruction to a nearby city. It climbed upon a tower in the city and evolved into a Metapod after it fell from it due to the tower collapsing because of Caterpie's weight. After that, it evolved into a Butterfree, giving it a chance to defeat Team Rocket and to get the kidnapped Dr. Gordon. Shortly after, Butterfree regained its original size.

Butterfree's known moves are String Shot, Supersonic, and Whirlwind.

Voice actors

Language Voice actor Japanese 半場友恵 Tomoe Hanba English Rebecca Honig Finnish Peter Pihlström Brazilian Portuguese Yuri Chesman European Spanish Chelo Vivares

Trivia

• Pokémon.com's summary for the episode misspells Zander's name as Xander.

This article is part of Project COD, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each one-time character of the Pokémon animated series.