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TMs in the pokemon world

E

endofheartaches

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Since I lack cable television and the ambition to download them from the internet, I rarely see the pokemon anime. So answer me this - have there ever been any mentions of TMs in the series? If so, have they ever shown someone using on on their pokemon?

In Fire Red and Leaf Green, they represent TMs as CD-like objects that you place on the pokemon's forehead in order for them to learn it. I never really thought of what a TM should look like, but it was definitely not a forehead CD.
I believe the TCG makes them out to look like bulky devices reminiscent of an explosive, and I'm not sure I like that idea either. You could not logically fit over 50 pipe bomb-sized items in a backpack.
 
I like the little boxes they use in the card games that you put the pokeball inside of. That just makes the most sense to me.

I also think that TMs in the anime have been replaced with just special training (ie Pikachu learning Iron Tail).
 
Agreed. While there may be such things as "TM's" in the anime, for the most part, they've been replaced by special training. Though...don't forget Pikachu learning Thunderbolt early on. While it wasn't exactly a machine especially built for the job, Pikachu did learn that through a machine of sorts...
 
WHen you say that Archaic do you mean the water-mill that Brock's father hooks pikachu up to? I'm not sure what a TM would look like, but every one of the ideas said here seemed good. I have to admit that the CD-tm in FRLG confused the helll out of me, I mean how do the pokemon process data like that?
 
I wanted to post an indepth idea of what I thought but then it got deleted so I imagine that if the pokemon world has both psychic pokemon and hypnosis then it is possible that tms and hms make the body understand,be able to perform the command and make the body change in the way that is nessisary to preform the command. I bet the TM Case in LGFR would read the discsa dn maybe a short movie about it. Like:

Flash. HM 05.
This a move in which a pokemon a flash or spark of light into the opponents eyes to reduce accuracy. The pokemon may use electricity *Shows pikachu using flash*, chemical reactions *Shows gloom using flash*, psychic energy *shows abra using flash* or unexplainable magic *shows clefairy using flash*. This is an HM so it can be preformed outside of battle. It is used to light up caverns and other dark places that a trainer might need to pass through.

Stuff like that. So, the disc would contain the info and you would place the pokemon or pokeball beside that big gray button thing.
 
Another Fan said:
I wanted to post an indepth idea of what I thought but then it got deleted so I imagine that if the pokemon world has both psychic pokemon and hypnosis then it is possible that tms and hms make the body understand,be able to perform the command and make the body change in the way that is nessisary to preform the command. I bet the TM Case in LGFR would read the discsa dn maybe a short movie about it. Like:

Flash. HM 05.
This a move in which a pokemon a flash or spark of light into the opponents eyes to reduce accuracy. The pokemon may use electricity *Shows pikachu using flash*, chemical reactions *Shows gloom using flash*, psychic energy *shows abra using flash* or unexplainable magic *shows clefairy using flash*. This is an HM so it can be preformed outside of battle. It is used to light up caverns and other dark places that a trainer might need to pass through.

Stuff like that. So, the disc would contain the info and you would place the pokemon or pokeball beside that big gray button thing.
Click to expand...

I like your idea alot. The disc player was something I was considering as a means of training, but then it showed an animation with a CD on a pokemon's head and I was puzzled. I think that's how I'll reason out TMs from now on, since it seems logical that they would demonstrate a move, thus teaching it to the pokemon.
 
Not exactly, I meant the video to be more for the trainer as I imagine pokemon as not intelligent to speak and understand fluent English but if you read the first part it mentions Hypnosis. I know it may seem unrealistic but still if a Drozee can hypnotize a pokemon then there is some way to send a telepathic universal message that makes the pokemon automatically understand what to do and something that would make the brain send a message to the body in order to change it so it could preform the move.
 
Nice but I doubt many pokemon would be able to or would pull off the move like that. Really, a crown? I'd imagine more of gleaming eyes or something since a bunch of the pokemon who flash have big eyes.
 
Not exactly, I meant the video to be more for the trainer as I imagine pokemon as not intelligent to speak and understand fluent English...
Click to expand...

Well, I believe that all pokemon can understand at least snatches of human conversation. How else would they be capable of using their attacks on command? Some are obviously more fluent in human speech than others (Pikachu, for example, has never had a problem understanding anything Ash or other people says) while others (Meowth, Mewtwo, Latias) can not only understand humans, but converse with them. Even then, a video demonstrating a pokemon using a TM move, with perhaps a bit of advanced technology to cause the pokemon to register that move in its catalogue of possible attacks, wouldn't require more than a rudimentary grasp of human language.
 
Well, they could understand it like a dog understands to sit when someone asks it to. Pikachu and Meowth are anime. And Mewtwo and Latias are Psychic so it is understandable why they understand they can just read the person's mind and then send signals that the human mind interprets as speech.
 
Both options

I've always thought that TMs really are machines. Speed learning machines that "write" the necessary learned behaviours into a Pokémon's synapses to allow them to use a certain ability that exists in their species in potentia but they do not usually ever learn to use.

However, Ono's idea seems good too. I'll bet that the method he used is some kind of fast-acting retrovirus that rewrites the Pokémon's DNA to include a new ability.

The speed learning machine option allows you to also do what we have seen Ash do in the animé - train your Pokémon to use a new move. It is just quicker to use the machine to cram it in within a few seconds rather than spend weeks training your Pokémon to identify and use a hidden ability.
 
I don't believe I've ever seen a TM used on the show.\

Blackjack, what's MPJ?
 
Magical Pokemon Journey, a shoujo (girls') manga (comic book) version of Pokemon. Stars characters named after nuts (Hazel, Almond, etc.), I believe.
 
In the Pokemon TCG, I remember TMs being some sort of box, I think there were wires, too. I forget the general look of it, though. It's been a while.

Someone else mentioned powder. I'm not sure how that would contribute to it being a "machine", unless it was named differently in the original.

A Cd could be a new version of a TM, just as there's a newer Nintendo system in the main character's room in every game.
 
Please note: The thread is from 19 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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