Pokemon TM’s and HM’s: We still don’t really know how they work
Pokémon is a nearly thirty-year-old franchise that shows no signs of slowdown anytime soon, yet there are still some major questions that never really got addressed during the expansive lore building that has been going on this whole time. Many of the unanswered Pokémon questions have been floating around the internet and schoolyards for almost as long as the franchise has been out. The one question that I don’t get seen asked nearly enough is: What exactly are TM’s and HM’s, and why are they in the game but not really in the anime?
A very early rendition of the “Dog Collar” style HM
Don’t answer that question so quickly – Most series fans will jump at the question and say, “Technical Machines and Hidden Machines, you idiot!” but that only tells us what the abbreviation stands for. The games uses TM’s and HM’s as a means for the player to teach new moves to their Pokémon, but there’s not really an explanation as to what exactly they are beyond their intended purpose. Despite being referred to as “machine” they’re most often depicted as physical media, resembling computer discs containing instructions on teaching new moves to a creature. Discs and data go into machines but they aren’t machines themselves. This is sort of like if you had a video game disc that you called a “PlayStation”…weird, right? We know for sure that computers exist in the Pokémon universe, so the idea of a disc isn’t exactly outlandish. What is weird about the HM’s and TM’s is that the game leads you to believe that you can just show them to your Pokémon and they’ll learn through…forehead contact? In some very early artwork for the series, TM/HM’s are shown to be more of a dog-collar type of device which makes a little more sense since Pokémon are pets at the end of the day but Pokémon art work from back then was kind of up to artists interpretation and not cannon. Even with the whole dog-collar thing, these moves are basically being learned through skin contact. There’s a missing piece to the puzzle here, the media itself can’t be a machine…so how does the data gets from disc to creature?
Let’s speculate based on what we know about this universe – Pokémon is very close to the real world besides the whole monster companion thing. Much like our own world, computers exist in this world of Pokémon. The creatures themselves have been confirmed to be live action beings that get transferred in to data (that’s how they get stored on computers), and data exists on CD’s. So, the easy explanation is that you can put TM’s and HM’s in to a computer while your Pokémon is stored and sort of “upload” new moves to your lil guys? Nope, that’d make WAY too much sense. You can only use TM’s and HM’s when your Pokémon are in their undigitized form, out in the field with your player. There’s something missing here, is there a separate computer-like device that your player carries with them? Between the anime, the comics, and the games themselves…this has yet to be addressed. I could totally believe that there’s a laptop type of device, but the games just show you planting a CD on the head of ‘mon. It’s frustrating that such a big part of the games are still left up to the players best guess, when the answer of “Oh yeah you put the TM’s in to the computer” seems like the intended logical answer to this illogical situation.
Discs aren’t just raw data, after all – they can contain videos, applications, images, and even games. I really like the idea of a Pokémon sitting down in front of a how-to video to learn Thunderpunch but we’ve yet to be graced with a scene like that. Every Pokémon trainer comes equipped with a Pokédex, maybe the TM/HM discs get scanned or go inside the Pokédex and then somehow get synced with your Pokémon? This would make a lot of sense, yet we still haven’t been shown this. In the game Pokémon Legends: Arceus, we are treated to a view of the Pokémon world as if it were about 150 years before the rest of the games, so the technology of that point in time wouldn’t allow for disc-based media. This means that there aren’t any HM’s or TM’s in the game but the explanation is that people called “move tutors” exist in the place of HM’s and TM’s. Based on that, I think it’s safe to assume that HM’s and TM’s are nothing more than a modern take on move tutoring. Someone behind the creative decision making of Pokémon Legends: Arceus seems to have made it a point to separate modern tech from the world of yesterday. So it’s not like they aren’t thinking of TM/HM’s place in the world, why can’t they just explain it properly? Selfishly, I like my hobbled together theory best: The discs go in the computer, and the moves get uploaded while your lil guys are digitized. This would make the most sense, wouldn’t it?
HM 01, Cut as show in Pokémon Origins
As for why HM’s and TM’s are not really in the anime, I think the answer is much more simple: they don’t need to be. Pokémon learn moves by observation, tutors, or Ash just making bullshit up on the spot. The Pokémon anime puts a heavy emphasis on the bond that can happen between a Pokémon and it’s master when training together. The idea of Ash just slapping Pikachu in the face with a CD is pretty antithetical to the spirit of the whole show, so I can understand the lack of HM/TM’s in that iteration of the Pokémon universe. Pokémon Origins is an animated mini-series that tries to make the anime as close as possible to the original Gameboy games, so they do show HM’s and TM’s briefly, but they still don’t explain a thing as to how they work. The TM’s and HM’s remain a matter of show not tell. This mini-series exists separately from the main anime with Ash’s adventure that we all think of when with think of Pokémon anime. This Pokémon mystery is one of the easier ones to assume the truth on by connecting all the dots, but we still don’t know for sure.
The truth is out there…
