I did all the Pokemon, I did all the humans... and for the longest time I've been thinking about doing moves. The thing is, Pokemon moves are so hard to talk about. How do I even include images of them? Their newest generation animations? Their first debut? Anime? Manga? And how do I really talk about them, because at some point things sort of blur together... like Incinerate and Flamethrower and Ember are all just the Pokemon spitting a tongue of flame at the enemy, and the difference is simply the power level and actual effects in the game, and at that point it's no longer fun and just me talking about percentages and damages and additional effects.
Which is why this article took me
forever to make. The first draft of this was done all the way in 2019, around the time
Sword and Shield news are beginning to crop up. Eventually, this sort of became kind of an updated and more organized version of my '
Lost in Translation' article from forever ago.
Anyway... each Pokemon can use four moves, and each move is a specific type. The Pokemon gets a 50% boost to damage if their inherent type is the same as the move's type. Originally, in the first three generations, each type counts as either 'physical' or 'special', but later on in Generation IV onwards, each move itself is classified as either physical or special damage depending on whether the Pokemon hits the enemy with the move or not.
We're going to list the moves by type, and we're covering all the moves released in the first generation. The list will be mostly arbitrary as I group together moves that I find similar enough -- moves will be noted with their English names first, then Japanese names in brackets.
Normal-type Moves:
We're going to start off with the type with significantly the most move types out there, mostly because there's actually a lot of overlap, and a lot of Pokemon moves just sort of get lumped into Normal if it's just "an animal does animal things". With a few exceptions, most Normal moves especially in the early generation tended to be pretty weak, or be simple status moves -- it's the sort of moves that just showcases your pet fire-lizard and rock-rhino slowly learning to master more advanced moves, so they just tackle and scratch and chomp down at your enemy.
Since there's a huge amount of Normal-type moves, I will split them up into categories. First up, I'm going to go through the many, many "animal does animal things" moves!
Tackle (Taiatari/Body Blow), Pound (Hataku/Strike), Scratch (Hikkaku/Scratch), Vise Grip (Hasamu/Clamp), Constrict (Karamitsuku/Coil Around): I'm going to group all of these together, for the simple fact that they all do essentially the same thing, just with slightly different flavour. Your Pokemon do regular animal things to attack the enemy! More likely than not, your starter Pokemon will have one of these moves as its starter move, slowly gaining their elemental attacks as they level up. Not a whole ton to say here, but it is always a nice feeling when you're finally able to replace these weaker moves for something more powerful. Scratch and Tackle are even essentially the same move, they just have different animations to represent the creature doing different things. I appreciate that. I'm actually mildly tickled that the designers programmed in Vise Grip and Constrict just for flavour; in Generation I only two evolutionary lines can learn each of these moves.
Leer (Niramitsukeru/Glare), Tail Whip (Shippo o furu/Tail Wag): Another batch of moves very common early in any Pokemon's learn-set, these essentially introduce the player to status moves, decreasing a certain stat that the opponent can do. Nothing much to say here, a lot of these are also 'things that animals do'.
- Horn Attack (Tsuno de tsuku/Horn Thrust), Stomp (Fumitsuke/Trample), Slash (Kirisaku/Slash), Quick Attack (Denkosekka/Lightning Speed), Rage (Ikari/Rage): I'm grouping these ones together as another set of Normal-type attacks that are, again, just 'animals doing animal things', though these are significantly stronger than the likes of Scratch and Tackle. I'm not going to point out every single time this happens, but some of them even has special effects! Slash has a higher critical hit ratio, Quick Attack strikes first, Stomp can make the opponent flinch, Rage's attack gets buffed if you use it consecutively after being hit... again, not a whole ton to say here.
- Fury Attack (Midarezuki/Disturbed Stab), Fury Swipes (Midarehikkaki/Fury Swipes), Double Slap (Ofuku binta/Round Trip Slap): Another one that's very common in many early-route Pokemon, Fury Attack is one of the moves that has something interesting going on for it -- they strike multiple times with a single move, and how many times depends your luck. Both Fury Attack and Double Slap can hit from 2 to 5 times. Note that Double Slap never specifies 'double' in its Japanese name, hence the fact that it more often than not doesn't hit you twice. Fury Attack also specifies that it's stabbing the opponent, hence the consistent animation of horns stabbing the enemy.
- Bind (Shimetsukeru/Bind), Wrap (Makitsuku/Wrap Around): Mostly used by Pokemon with vines or serpentine bodies, Bind and Wrap deal damage over time. Damage-over-time moves honestly aren't ever that good... except in Generation I, where the opponent being bound or wrapped cannot attack. That one Youngster after Pewter City with an Ekans? That was my bane back when I played Pokemon Blue because it had Wrap.
- Slam (Tatakitsukeru/Slam), Body Slam (Noshikakari/Lean On): Always mix the two up due to their very obviously similar-sounding names. Both are slightly stronger than the three above this, but, again, are more or less just another example of physical brawling.
- Headbutt (Zutsuki/Headbutt): I almost included Headbutt with the ones on top there, but Headbutt deserves a special mention. In addition to being a stronger Tackle (it's also got a flinch chance), in the Johto games, your Pokemon can use Headbutt in the overworld to attack certain trees and make sleeping bugs and birds perched on top of it fall down. As a young kid, I've always found this to be one of the coolest ways to find Pokemon and I am highly disappointed that this never returned in any non-Johto games.
- Take Down (Tosshin/Charge), Double-Edge (Sutemi Takkuru/Life-Risking Tackle): These moves are pretty strong, stronger than Body Slam and Slash and the rest, but they damage your Pokemon. Again, I really don't find anything much to say.
- Struggle (Waruagaki/Vain Struggle): A much weaker version of Take Down and Double-Edge, your Pokemon will only use Struggle if it runs out of PP (power points) of all its moves. All Pokemon can do Struggle, and it's essentially a way for the game to not have a non-stop battle -- your Pokemon will more likely knock itself out with Struggle than it will damage the opponent.
- Thrash (Abareru/Violent Struggle): One of everyone's favourite moves because of how powerful it is, Thrash is another type of move that 'locks' your Pokemon into doing Thrash and only Thrash for a couple of turns. You deal massive damage, but at the end of the Thrashing your Pokemon is confused! Again, it's kind of simple, but I do like that early in the franchise, these 'big risk, big payoff' tricks are just Normal-types moves.
Some moves are sort of specific to the anatomy of the Pokemon involved, whether they have huge fangs or fists or whatnot.
- Mega Punch (Megaton Panchi/Megaton Punch), Mega Kick (Megaton Kikku/Megaton Kick): Otherwise known as the 'two moves that are Normal-type instead of Fighting-type for no real reason'. Karate Chop got changed from Normal-type to Fighting-type in generation II, I'm not sure why these two haven't been. They're cool simply because their names, even in Japanese, are English words. There's just a fun little pizzazz to that, you know what I mean?
- Comet Punch (Renzoku Panchi/Consecutive Punch): In the first generation, only Hitmonchan and Kangaskhan can do Comet Punch, and up until Generation VI, those two and Ledyba are the only ones that could do it. It's basically Fury Swipes in punch form, and I guess the idea is that Ledyba and Kangaskhan have multiple hands, while Hitmonchan is just that fast? Eh.
- Spike Cannon (Toge Kyanon/Spike Cannon): Shared between Cloyster and Omanyte, this basically involves launching huge chunks of their spikes at the enemy. Essentially Fury Attack, but with a specific piece of anatomy -- I did remember the Adventures manga making this super-cool.
- Bide (Gaman/Perseverance): I really do like the idea of this. Bide makes your Pokemon just store up damage for three turns while the enemy wails on it, then unleashes it all upon the enemy in one huge burst, dealing twice of the damage 'stored'. That feels like something that maybe could be reclassified as a Fighting-type move? Though I guess under Gen-I logic it falls under the 'huge damage, but with risk' that many high-tier Normal-type moves can do.
- Skull Bash (Roketto Zutsuki/Rocket Headbutt): A two-turn move, where your Pokemon does nothing for the first turn then unleashes a stronger-than-average attack on the second turn. This one doesn't quite get the same amount of publicity as Solarbeam or Dig, though I think Ash's Squirtle uses this a lot in the anime. A fun trivia is that in Generation I, Squirtle's line is the only one that can learn this move naturally (though TMs allow many more to learn it) -- the idea, I think, is that they retract their head into the turtle shell and then explosively launch it out like a spring.
- Egg Bomb (Tamago bakudan/Egg Bomb): Originally exclusive to a TM, and only able to be learned by Exeggcute and Chansey, both of which carry eggs. And Mew, who can learn all TM's. It's honestly something of an Easter Egg (hee hee) and has since been added into Chansey and Exeggutor's regular moveset, still exclusive to the two.
Now that we're done with most of the more 'mundane' moves, I'm going to jump around in a couple of other move classifications. Next up are a collection of 'status' moves that feel a bit more... advanced than just wagging your tail or growling at the enemy.
- Defense Curl (Maruku naru/Curl Up), Focus Energy (Kiaidame/Fighting Spirit Improvement): These two show up a lot in the move-sets of many Pokemon, far more than you think they would. Not much to say, pretty basic self-buffing moves; one defensive and one boosts crits.
- Harden (Kataku naru/Stiffen): An... interesting move. Most associated with Metapod and Kakuna and other cocoon Bug-types, more Pokemon can learn Harden than you give it credit for. In addition to bugs, we've got Rock monsters like Geodude and Onix; amorphous monsters like Grimer and Slugma; animals with hard carapace like Staryu, Krabby or Kabuto... even Snorlax used to learn it, leading to a hilarious moment in the Adventures manga. I actually like this a lot, I like that this actually does feel a lot more like a 'Normal' move shared across many different Pokemon species that just represents the creature taking a turn to harden their carapace or skin or outer layer.
- Swords Dance (Tsurugi no mai/Dance of Swords): I originally put this with Defense Curl and Focus Energy together, because they're all just self-buff moves... but no. No, I respect Swords Dance too much. The move was originally learnable by Farfetch'd, Pinsir and Scyther -- all Pokemon that wielded swords or have blade-like appendages, but a TM also allowed many, many other Pokemon that have pretty questionable 'blades' also learn it. Lickitung's tongue apparently counts. Later on it became a bit more widespread, since the animation in the games and anime are just the Pokemon dancing while magical blades appear and clash around. This boosts attack stats a lot, which means that if you don't do something, the Swords Dance set-up will more likely than not murder you. I have too much PTSD from Swords Dance not to mention it.
- Growth (Seicho/Growth): Speaking of moves that felt weirdly attributed to the Normal-type... Growth! Growth. The description talks about how the body 'grows all at once', which causes stat buffs. For eight generations, this move is almost exclusively learned only by Grass-types, and the only non-Grass type that are able to learn it is... the flying flower-fairy Comfey. Yeah, kinda weird, you'd think they'd retcon this move to Grass-type at some point.
- Minimize (Chiisakunaru/Shrink): Minimize, the opposite of Growth, does make sense as a Normal-type move considering how varied the Pokemon that can learn this are. You literally shrink down, Ant-Man style, to gain evasion. Some of them make sense. Grimer's a bunch of slude; Drifloon and Qwilfish can inflate and deflate... but Clefairy? Chansey? The animation seems to be tailor-made for Clefairy, too. Always memorable in the first two generations where your Pokemon gets reduced into basically five pixels for the duration of the battle.
- Double Team (Kage bunshin/Shadow Division): Yes, you read that right. "Double Team" is just straight-up Kage Bunshin. And no, Naruto didn't invent it -- it's part of ninja popular culture and Pokemon's usage predates the Naruto manga by a couple of years. The idea is that you move so fast or utilize shadows that you leave afterimages to confuse the enemy. I've never quite got why Double Team raised evasion until I realized what it's supposed to represent, and I remembered I abused this in Pokemon Yellow to beat Brock's Onix with Pikachu -- spamming Double Team until my evasion got so high that I can whittle Onix down with Quick Attacks. Other than that? Double Team, by virtue of making afterimage clones, tends to be the source of some of the cooler action scenes in the anime.
- Smokescreen (Enmaku/Smokescreen): It's basically what it says, a screen of smoke is made! I was about to argue that this should be Fire-type... but then Smokescreens are just as likely to be made by Horsea's ink blobs, or Koffing's poison clouds, so... okay, this being Normal-type I guess makes sense.
- Recover (Jikosaisei/Self-Regeneration): A pretty weird one, Recover is one of the most powerful self-restoration moves... and I guess anything that can recover from wounds is able to do this, I guess? Staryu and Mareanie are based on a starfish, who can recover from cut limbs, so it learns Recover. Ditto for Corsola, based on coral, or Frillish, based on jellyfishes. Porygon is a digital being, so it can conceivably regenerate broken parts of itself. And then... a bunch of Psychic types are also able to use Recover, like Mewtwo and Alakazam and Medicham... which I've always just thought to be Psychic types being just badass and regenerating from wounds with the power of their minds or something.
- Mimic (Monomane/Mimic): This used to be a TM that almost every Pokemon can learn, where the Pokemon can Mimic one of its opponent's moves. Later on it became Sudowoodo's signature move until a bunch of other 'performer' style Pokemon (Mr. Mime, Jigglypuff) or the obvious parrot Chatot became able to do it. I guess it's sort of a monkey-see-monkey-do thing? Eh.
I separated these because they count as 'sound' based moves, which everyone speculated was going to be the new type back in Generation VI. Some specific Pokemon like Noivern and Toxtricity would interact with these sound-based moves eventually, and I do think it's kinda cool because some real-life animals do weaponize sound.
- Growl (Nakigoe/Cry Out), Screech (Iya no oto/Unpleasant Tone): I almost included this alongside Tail Whip and Leer, but since it's more thematic here... yeah, Growl is very common in most early-route Pokemons' repertoire. Screech is basically stronger Growl, though in Generation I only Golbat and Arbok for some reason can learn it. Screech became extremely commonplace in later generations, though.
- Roar (Hoeru/Roar): Originally exclusive to the canine Vulpix and Growlithe, Roar's a fun unexpected move where the wild dog/fox roars so fiercely that you and your Pokemon runs away in terror. Later on, like Screech, more Pokemon can do this.
- Sing (Utau/Sing): Most associated with Jigglypuff thanks to the iconic role in the anime, Sing basically puts your opponent to sleep because the song that your Pokemon sang is such a nice lullaby. Originally exclusive to a bunch of pink Normal-types (Chansey, Clefairy, Jigglypuff) and Lapras, this move also became a bit more widespread in later generations.
- Supersonic (Cho'onpa/Ultrasound): One of the most annoying moves! Lots of Pokemon can do this, but you will remember this as being part of Zubat and Tentacool's learnset. A bunch of concentric rings lance out and cause your Pokemon to become confused, where they just sort of sometimes hit themselves and hurt themselves. IIRC the idea that real-life animals using sound to disable their prey has been exaggerated, but I do love the idea that these Pokemon based on animals that use echolocation to move around have developed a way to weaponize them.
- Sonic Boom (Sonikku Bumu/Sonic Boom): And the only damaging move in the 'sound' sub-type is Sonic Boom here, incidentally one of the few generation I normal moves to be reclassified as a 'Special' type move, i.e. it's launched from a range. Interestingly, originally only the two 'artificial' Pokemon, Voltorb and Magnemite, are able to unleash Sonic Booms. I guess it's part of their 'engine' or something? Always one of the cooler move animations, I feel. I'm also not sure why a blast of sonic energy always deals fixed 20 damage, but sure.
HM moves now! If you are unfamiliar with the franchise, HM moves essentially allow your Pokemon to interact with the world around it, helping you to cut down trees or move giant boulders to progress through the overworld. They are also notorious for being unable to be removed from your Pokemon's learnset, and it's not until the last couple of generations that Nintendo made an effort to remove them. I really do find these cool in concept if not execution, I always found that Pokemon Ranger in particular did a great job at making your Pokemon interact with the world around them. (The other two in the first generation are Surf and Fly).
- Cut (Iaigiri/Iai Cut): Cut allows you to cut specific trees (and also grass), and is otherwise an unremarkable move, basically a crappier Slash... in the games, anyway. The anime loves this move, particularly with Greninja, because... well, Iaigiri, if you don't know, is basically that thing that samurai movies and anime swordsmen do when they quickly draw a blade from the scabbard and then resheathing it quickly as the swordsman slices the enemy... usually having the enemy fall right as the swordsman is resheathing the blade a short distance away. As you can guess, it's pretty cinematic there.
- Flash (Furasshu/Flash): Perhaps one of the most annoying HM's (so much that it got reduced to a TM in some other generations) Flash is the only non-damaging one, used to brighten up certain caves. Mostly it's Bug-types, Electric-types and Psychic-types that can do this.
- Strength (Kairiki/Super strength): Your Pokemon moves giant boulders blocking the road! It's also one of the few decent HM moves, being a pretty decent (if vanilla) physical Normal move. An unsurprisingly large amount of Pokemon can do this, basically anything that looks like they can move rocks. Which is a lot of Pokemon! From pretty obvious ones like Machamp and Rhydon and Snorlax to... Pineco! Jigglypuff! Lotad! Kricketune! Again, not much to say here.
And here are a bunch of more special moves, which I think are just assigned the Normal typing because there really isn't anywhere else to put them. A couple of them are, uh... wind-based attacks? They don't count as Flying-types because, uh... I'm not entirely sure? There are the weird things, like self-destruction, creating beams of star-shaped blasts, or giant Kamehameha beams of destructive energy....
- Disable (Kanashibari/Temporary Binding): Mimic and Double Team get a pass in the 'assorted moves', but Disable? It disables one of your enemy's moves, and its Japanese names borrows from a traditional paralytic spell from Japanese myths; and later used as a term for sleep paralysis. The ones that can learn this move is a bit odd, too. A bunch of Psychic-types, obviously (and I maintain that Disable probably should be retconned into Psychic) and Psychic-adjacent Pokemon like Golduck. Ghost-types can learn it too, which makes sense. But Jigglypuff? Grimer? Lickitung? Seadra? Bruxish? It's weird.
- Razor Wind (Kamaitachi/Razor Wind): While most 'wind' style moves are Flying-type, two of them that were introduced in Generation I remain as Normal-types. Its Japanese name is a reference to a yokai -- a weasel with a sickle riding the wind, meant to explain the phenomenon of cuts caused by wind. It's a 'charging' move, though I'm not entirely sure how one charges a whirling blade of wind. Most of the Pokemon that can do this are Pokemon with wings, so... I dunno.
- Whirlwind (Fukitobashi/Blow Away): The animation used to show a tornado like Gust being formed, though I guess this one has a Japanese name that doesn't entirely imply a whirlwind being created. Whirlwind is sort of like Roar, the user blows away the enemy out of battle. Despite it, though, Whirlwind's still learned mostly by Pokemon with wings of some sort. And Hariyama, which I suppose is some sort of sumo-push reference.
- Self-Destruct (Jibaku/Selfdestruct), Explosion (Dai bakuhatsu/Big Explosion): Your Pokemon blows up, dealing massive damage! (The two moves differ in damage) The ultimate in 'high risk, high reward', these two are very, very annoying when wild Pokemon use it and whittle down your health. In the first generation, the Voltorb, Koffing and Geodude lines learn this, with the moves being essentially most synonymous with Voltorb. A surprising amount of Pokemon can blow themselves up, from obvious ones (Drifblim, Gigalith, Claydol, Pineco) to ones that sort of make sense when you think about it (the Regis, Skuntank who carries around gas, both Turtonator and Gourgeist who is probably flammable)... to Azelf. Just Azelf and not the other two pixies. He can dai bakuhatsu right in your face, this pixie that is happy to blow himself up. Okay.
- Substitute (Migawari/Scapegoat): A very fun move that almost all Pokemon can learn via TM, this one is a bit iconic due to the adorable green kaiju plushie that the Pokemon leaves behind. The Pokemon cuts part of its health, then leaves behind a doll that takes damage for it. Bizarre, but one that's fun. In the anime and manga, it's usually represented by the Pokemon using its energy to create a body double, sort of like a more corporeal version of Double Team. It's pretty cool, but on the other hand I do find the idea that the enemy is just fooled by a doll a lot funnier.
- Guillotine (Hasami girochin/Pincer Guillotine), Horn Drill (Tsuno doriru): Pokemon taught me what a 'Guillotine' was, and how cool the word is. These two attacks are one-hit-KO moves. It's got shit accuracy and only affects lower-leveled Pokemon, but if it hits, you kill the enemy immediately. Absolutely fun! Originally, only Krabby, Kingler and Pinsir can use Guillotine, and so far it's restricted to Pokemon with natural pincer-shaped blades. Guillotine makes sense, as dark as it kind of sounds, to be a one-hit kill. Horn Drill, though? Originally exclusive to Rhydon, Seaking and Nidorino, I'm... not entirely sure what makes a spinning horn a one-hit-KO as opposed to moves like Drill Peck or Fury Attack. But I guess it's just drillier?
- Tri Attack (Torai atakku/Tri attack): Naturally learned by Doduo and Porygon; and later given to anyone with more than one head like Dugtrio, Magneton, Probopass and Hydreigon, Tri Attack is a bizarre attack. The animation shows the Pokemon launching three orbs, one fiery, one eletrical and one icy. You'd think that it's three weak attaccks of the three elements, right? No, it's still normal, but it just has the chance to cause one of the status effects from those three. as a 'beam' style attack, Tri-Attack is one of the few Generation I Normal-type moves to be counted as a special attack in later games.
- Metronome (Yubi o furu/Wag Finger): Pokemon is also where I learned what a 'metronome' is. A musical tempo device? The Japanese name is even more mundane, just wagging a finger. The actual result of Metronome? Any move will be cast. Anything from mundane attacks like Focus Energy and Pound to, like, creating a whirlpool, bending time, manipulating the weather or summoning meteors. Most associated with Clefairy and Togepi thanks to the anime, Generation I allows a surprising amount of Pokemon to learn it via TM. I had way too much fun trying to beat Pokemon Crystal with a Togetic with Metronome. It's so satisfying to have it land on Lugia's Aeroblast or something!
- Swift (Supido Suta/Speed Star): "Swift" just means fast in English, so I just assumed that the Pokemon doing the attacking just moved quickly and struck the enemy fast. But all the animations in the video games and anime constantly shows a stream of energy stars being generated and launched at the enemy. The Japanese name sheds light to it, 'Speed Star'... but, uh, I'm still not sure what the speed stars themselves are, and why they cannot miss, and why so many random Pokemon can use this move. One of the most common moves, and one of the few Normal-type moves to be reclassified as a Special-type move
- Hyper Beam (Hakai kosen/Destruction Beam): Whether you call it "Hyper Beam" or "Hakai Kosen", this move used to be the ultimate move. Learnable by all Pokemon that cannot evolve further, Hyper Beam is pretty damn prominent in all Pokemon media as basically the most powerful Pokemon attack, essentially representing a Dragon Ball Z style Kamehameha wave, unleashed as a goddamn laser that engulfs the enemy. Except for Generation III, whose DNA-helix Hyper Beam is still low-key my favourite. Anyway, the idea that any Pokemon sufficiently powerful enough can just unleash a goddamn Hyper Beam is a fun idea in my mind. The move is so powerful that the Pokemon has to recharge afterwards -- very anime! Most of the Pokemon that can naturally learn this move tend to be draconic, robotic or legendary -- which makes sense. And the artillery-based Remoraid and Octillery, which also makes sense. And, uh, Snorlax. Who, in more recent media, shoots Hyper Beams when it opens its eyes. Okay! Still one of my favourite moves ever since I saw that one Gyarados unleash a Hyper Beam at Mewtwo in the first Pokemon movie.
The last ones are 'Signature Moves', which is a term used for when a move is only able to be learned by a specific Pokemon (or evolutionary line), especially in the generation that the move debuted in. For the most part; most of these end up being learnable by other Pokemon down the line, but it's fun to note them.
- Dizzy Punch (Piyopiyo Panchi/Chirp-Chirp Punch): Get it? Piyo-piyo? Because the confusion status effect causes chirping birds to rotate around the confused Pokemon? In the first generation, this is the signature move of Kangaskhan. No real reason why a giant kaiju kangaroo parent is associated with causing confusion on the enemy, but... eh?
- Glare (Hebinirami/Snake Glare): So, yeah, there's a reason why Glare, a move where your Pokemon glares at the enemy so hard they become paralyzed, is originally exclusive to Ekans/Arbok, and so far have only been only learnable by snakes or dragons that look like snakes. Its Japanese name is 'Snake Glare'! Presumably a nod to Medusa, or to the Basilisk, snake-adjacent mythological creatures that can turn people into stone?
- Hyper Fang (Hissatsu Maeba/Certain-Kill Fang), Super Fang (Ikari no Maeba/Fang of Hatred): Holy shit, Hyper Fang and Super Fang have very edgy names, huh? Both of these are exclusive to Rattata's line, and are obviously learned by any rodent with massive fangs. It is kind of fun that Rattata of all things have not one but two signature moves! Super Fang still remains kind of weird to this day, too, because despite having such a similar name to Hyper Fang, it just cuts the current health of the enemy in half. Why? How? It's a rat biting you!
- Lovely Kiss (Akuma no Kissu/Demon's Kiss): Jynx's exclusive move, and, to this day, still exclusive to Jynx. Honestly the Japanese name is a bit mean-spirited, so I guess the idea is that Jynx kissing someone causes them to go to sleep out of shock, like the anime? The name 'Demon's Kiss' does explain why in Generation II and III a cartoon devil swoops down to kiss the enemy.
- Pay Day (Neko ni koban/Coin for a cat): There's a TM in Generation I, but it's naturally learned only by Meowth, and is very much associated with Meowth! Pay Day causes coins to be spontaneously generated, and its Japanese name as well as Meowth's design is designed after the Maneki-neko, the beckoning cat statues that are supposed to attract luck and fortune. Meowth just does it more directly with a move, scattering coins around you out of nowhere!
- Barrage (Tamanage/Ball Throw): Still exclusive to Exeggcute and Exeggutor even after 20+ years! The animation in the games shows multiple balls being thrown at the enemy, while the manga shows Exeggcute manifesting a bunch of eggs that resemble itself. Okay, sure. It's kind of an underwhelming one.
- Soft-Boiled (Tamago umi/Egg Lay): A move exclusive to Chansey, Chansey just... restores half its health. It's like Recover, only in later games you can use Softboiled to cure your allies. In older generations, you can even command Chansey to use Softboiled outside of battle, cutting its health to cure its allies. Presumably Chansey lays unfertilized eggs, otherwise it's a bit, uh, uncomfortable to think that Chansey's snacking on her unborn young.
- Transform (Henshin/Transform): A move exclusive to Ditto and Mew, and only to them. If you subscribe to the fan-theory that Ditto is born or created from Mew... anyway, Transform allows you to turn into the enemy and copy all their moves... but lose Transform in the process. All media appearances of Ditto make it so cool since it can morph from one monster to the next without having to wait, but in-game both Ditto and Transform are kind of one-note gimmicks.
- Splash (Hanru/Hop): Originally exclusive to Magikarp, Splash is famous for being Magikarp's only move, and the game makes it clear that 'but nothing happened!' So yeah, you need to raise Magikarp, somehow, with a completely useless move, until it learns Tackle and eventually becomes a Gyarados. I can't blame the translation team for giving this move the name 'Splash', because, well, it's exclusive to Magikarp who sort of just flops and hops around uselessly. Later on, though, many other Pokemon like Hoppip and Wynaut and Spoink and Bounsweet also learn Splash thanks to its original Japanese name being a more natural 'hop'. Oops!
- Sharpen (Kakubaru/Improve angles) One of Porygon's signature moves, it's basically representing Porygon making his, well, polygons sharper to stab the enemy. A couple generations later some crystal-themed Pokemon like Cryogonal, Carbink and Diancie get to share Sharpen.
- Conversion (Tekusucha/Texture): Porygon's other signature move, Conversion, is still exclusive to the Porygon line, though, representing Porygon converting its texture to swap its type to match that of a move in its roster. Originally Conversion just copies the enemy's type, though obviously it's not as useful as turning Porygon's Normal-type into something that can get STAB. Though it's still a pretty gimmicky move.
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Fire-type Moves:
Whew, that's the Normal type out of the way! We're going to go down the three starter types first, so first of is Fire, which I think is nice to show the types of moves that a type usually has. There really isn't a whole ton you can do with fire. You shoot fire at the enemy, and they burn to death fainting. They do tend to look absolutely cool while doing so, though. Fire-type attacks are basic in anime and cartoons, but they're basic for a reason.
- Ember (Hinoko/Fire Sparks): Ember is the weak fire move! Your pokemon shoots a small gout of flame. Not much to say here.
- Fire Spin (Hono no uzu/Flame swirl): Fire Spin is the damage-over-time move! This one is pretty cool in the anime, the fire the Pokemon spits swirls around like a spring, or manifests as a massive tornado around the enemy. Probably one of the most 'the anime makes this sub-par move in the game looks so cool'.
- Fire Punch (Hono no panchi/Fire Punch): Originally, only Magmar and Hitmonchan can learn this move! The whole point of Hitmonchan is that it has three elemental moves, making it super-duper useful! Which became discredited when later games made this a TM. Fire Punch is the only Fire move here that becomes Physical in later games, since all the others are classified as Special.
- Flamethrower (Kaen hosha/Flame Emission): The big fire move. Most types have a 'Flamethrower clone', where you deal a decent, pretty high amount of damage for good accuracy. Most Fire-types can learn this, and it's also a TM in all the games.
- Fire Blast (Daimonji/Daimonji): The other big fire move. Fire Blast deals more damage than Flamethrower, but has less accuracy. Again, most types have a Flamethrower/Fire Blast choice as their end-game options. Fire Blast is always shown as exploding in a five-pointed symbol, 大 that's actually the kanji for 'Large'. The move's Japanese name is a reference to the Daimonji festival (or Gozan no Okuribi), where bonfires are lit on mountains in the shape of the kanji 大 to signify the moment that spirits of deceased family members return to the spirit world.
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Grass-type Moves:
Of course, we'll continue with Grass, which I think has one of the most flavourful and most wide variety of moves. Plants can do a lot of things!
- Vine Whip (Tsuru no muchi/Vine Whip): Grass's most basic damaging move is Vine Whip here, which, thanks to the anime's Bulbasaur using it prominently, has gotten a very memorable visual. Chikorita's little neck-buds extending into vines was also pretty memorable! The Grass type is probably the type with the biggest move varieties, thanks to the different moves just describing the various ways that plants can attack. Granted, I don't think any real-life plants are able to spontaneously sprout vines to beat the shit out of you, but it's cool to imagine, right?
- Razor Leaf (Happa katta/Leaf Cutter); Petal Dance (Hanabira no mai/Dance of Petals): The other move often used in the anime by Bulbasaur is Razor Leaf, which... well, involves a bunch of leaves being shot at the enemy. Depending on the game, the season of the anime and sometimes even the Pokemon itself, Razor Leaf can go from just a bunch of regular leaves being tossed around; crescent-shaped leaves; or even at one point a Victreebel turning its leaves into rigid leaf blades. Pretty neat, and clearly someone in the development team has been cut by a leaf before. Petal Dance is flavour-wise the same thing as Razor Leaf, but it mechanically functions like Thrash -- the Pokemon dances for a couple of turns continually, then gets confused. Very flavourful for a 'dance'!
- Stun Spore (Shibiregona/Numbing Powder), Sleep Powder (Nemurigona/Sleep Powder): One thing about the Grass type is also that it's also the 'debuff' type, alongside its constantly-paired types Bug and Poison. Which, considering how many plants in the world that are hazardous to animals... like, it's like weaponizing poison ivy and herbs or flowers that make you go to sleep... kinda cool! There's a trio of 'powder' moves alongside Poison Powder, which we'll talk about below.
- Spore (Kinoko no hoshi/Mushroom Spore): Spore, meanwhile, is a signature move only learnable by Paras and Parasect in the first generation. And later on, only by mushroom-based Pokemon like Shroomish, Shroomish and Morelull. The Japanese name, which specifies 'mushroom spore', actually gives us a reason for this!
- Solar Beam (Sora Bimu/Solar Beam): And here we go with one of my favourite moves in the games, for the simple fact that the anime episode that debuted Solar Beam was pretty fucking awesome. Plants do get energy by photosynthesis, the whole process of using solar energy to create energy. Plant Pokemon, on the other hand, can use solar energy and turn it into... well, a goddamn pillar of pure glowing Dragon Ball Z energy that they use to unleash on the enemy. In the games, Solar Beam (or as I originally remember it, 'Solarbeam' -- many moves had the space added into their names in later generations) is actually pretty impractical since you waste a turn telegraphing your move. But in the anime and manga? And the general vibe of weaponizing the sunlight and unleashing living hell on your enemies? Pretty damn awesome.
- Absorb (Suitoru/Absorb), Mega Drain (Mega dorein/Mega Drain): Both of these are the same, just with different power levels (and we'd get Giga Drain later on), and it's so simple but also such a cool move to give to a plant monster. Absorb and the two 'Drain' moves basically has the Grass-type just drain energy from the enemy, healing themselves in the process. The idea, I think, is that plants drain nutrients from the soil around them. Or something more sinister, thanks to its accompanying move...
- Leech Seed (Yadorigi no tane/Mistletoe Seed): Another one of my favourite moves! As shown by that manga display of the move, Leech Seed has your Pokemon launch a seed onto your enemy and the seed constantly drain energy from your opponent over the next couple of turns. I'm not sure how the logistics of it move, how vines or roots not attached to the core creature that uses the move is able to drain nutrients to the Pokemon. But the idea is so cool! Its Japanese name is even extra-specific to mention that the Pokemon generates a mistletoe seed. Mistletoes are parasitic plants, don't you know? I didn't, until writing this article! Pretty cool, and 'Leech Seed' is a pretty cool name that describes the whole draining of nutrients pretty well! Again, I love that part of the Grass-type's 'flavour' is just using vines and roots to drain energy from the opponent, or that parasitic plants is even part of the base flavour for the Grass-type in general.
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Water-type Moves:
Water-type moves also have a lot more variety than Fire-types, having a couple that are kind of exclusive to the anatomy of aquatic animals. I don't think they're quite as interesting as Grass-type in terms of variety, but there sure is a bit more variety compared to 'I shoot fire'.
- Water Gun (Mizudeppo/Water Gun), Hydro Pump (Haidoro ponpu/Hydro Pump): Both of these are pretty easy as far as 'weaponizing' the element of water is. It's just a stream of water! And, well, high-powered streams of water can be pretty dang destructive! I've always loved that the weaker water attack is called 'water gun', which I've always found cute. And the much more powerful 'hydro pump' just sounds cool as all hell.
- Bubble (Awa/Bubble), Bubble Beam (Baburu kosen/Bubble Beam): The other water-type attacks that are kind of common in the lower levels are Bubble and Bubblebeam (or "Bubble Beam", as it's now parsed). It's pretty interesting, actually! I'm think some crabs defend themselves with bubbles or something, but the visuals of using bubbles to attack -- and that the bubbles count as the water element -- has always been pretty fun and different compared to Water Gun. Bubble Beam, meanwhile, I remember mostly because of the sound effects and the Game Boy screen going into negative colours in Generation I when Misty's Starmie uses it.
- Surf (Naminori/Surfing): Our fourth HM in the first generation, and the first one we're discussing here that's not Normal-type, "Surf" basically allows you to ride your Pokemon and surf around. Most of the time it's shown as your character just riding the Pokemon, but I did remember that my fondest visual of the Surf move is Blue from Pokemon Adventures riding his Golduck like a surfboard. In battle, despite both Japanese and English names referring to surfing, Surf always just summons a gigantic fuck-off tidal wave from nowhere that drowns your enemy, which is absurd but also fun at the same time.
- Waterfall (Taki nobori/Waterfall Climb): Wait, this move was in Generation I? And it's the signature move of... Goldeen and Seaking? What? I'm not sure if this is a reference to the same 'carp climbs a waterfall' myth that Magikarp/Gyarados was based on, but... okay, sure. In Generation II games, Waterfall gets elevated into HM status, allowing your Pokemon to ascend waterfalls, which is... an interesting way to make a roadblock. In combat I've always found Waterfall to be kind of ridiculous in all the best ways, with the newer generation games showing a random waterfall appearing behind so that your Pokemon can climb the waterfall while driving its opponent against the current.
- Crabhammer (Kurabu hanma/Crabhammer): Originally exclusive, obviously, to Krabby and Kingler; and later only shared among crustacean Pokemon. Not too much to say here, your crab bashes its opponent with its claw. Pretty cool that they do give Krabby of all Pokemon a signature move, and, of course, while most of the Water-type moves tended to be Special, both Waterfall and Crabhammer end up being classified as Physical moves because you're beating your opponent up with something. A giant waterfall in Waterfall's case, and a crab claw in Crabhammer's case.
- Clamp (Kara de hasamu/Clamp With Shell): This one is exclusive to Shellder and Cloyster, and it basically represents the cat-sized shellfish clamping onto its enemies with its shell. Tortoises can't do that with theirs! Not much to say here, it's honestly another one like Crabhammer that's a neat nod to the Pokemon's animal inspiration.
- Withdraw (Kara ni komoru/Withdraw Into Shell): This is a Water-type move, but it just raises defenses... and honestly I could totally see this ending up as a Normal-type move alongside the likes of Smokescreen or Defense Curl. But because all the Pokemon that can use it are Water-type in Generation I, I guess it remains a Water-type? I absolutely love that all the Tapus (who can turn into totems) have this move, and among some of the newer Pokemon who got Withdraw, Polteageist is among them.
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Electric-type Moves:
Electric-types are also kind of similar to Fire-types in that they're very cool, but they're basically just running the gamut of 'shock the enemy really really hard with electricity'. Elemental damage!
- Thunder Shock (Denki shokku/Electric Shock): This is the weak electric zap -- and all of them are honestly more or less the same thing. The Electric-type unleashes a bolt of electricity! These Electric-type moves all sound pretty different in Japanese, but the English translation turns all of them to have 'thunder' in their name. Which is cool. Thunder is a cool word.
- Thunderbolt (Juman boruto/100,000 Volts), Thunder (Kaminari/Thunder): And these two are basically 100% identical to Flamethrower and Fire Blast. Both are the endgame Electric-type moves; one slightly weaker but 100% accurate, while the other is more powerful but misses more easily. In a fun little gimmick that I wished they did more often, Thunder actually becomes 100% accurate in the rain, when they introduced weather in the next generation... but we'll cover that next time. And, in basically every single generation that they came in, both Thunderbolt and Thunder has 100% the coolest animations ever. Thunder had a particularly devastating one in Generation III compared to the rest of the move animations in the game, and I remembered its Generation VI one being pretty cool too. Both of these just sound very cool to say, too, right? "Thunderbolt" and "Thunder" are just so cool to say.
- Thunder Wave (Denjiha/Electromagnetic Wave): Thunder Wave, meanwhile, is a status move. As a kid I didn't see the point, but as I played more and more games I actually realize the value of a 100% accuracy status-inflicting move was in capturing Pokemon. And, of course, while Thunder Wave might not be the way to go; in competitive actually disabling your enemy's speed with paralysis is pretty valid. I do kind of like the idea here, that this particular electrical current is enough to numb you, but it doesn't burn your body like the other four moves do.
- Thunder Punch (Kaminari Panchi/Thunder Punch): As the counterpart to Fire Punch, only Electabuzz and Hitmonchan can learn this originally. Among the Electric-type moves here, this move became a physical move, and memorably became a TM in Generation II.
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Bug-type Moves:
After the four starter types, I guess we'll move to the type of moves you'll most likely encounter? Bug-type monsters are pretty early on but there really aren't a whole lot of Bug-type moves. Obviously as the game went on every single type would end up getting something that they can use to damage the enemy with, but early on? Yeah.
- String Shot (Ito o haku/Spit Thread): Probably the most iconic Generation I Bug-type move is String Shot. The bug just... shoots a string that binds the enemy. It's something generally associated with spiders or silkworms, but in the first generation it's exclusively available to the two caterpillars, which is... okay, sure? The anime makes this move a lot cooler than it actually is, immobilizing the enemy and everything; in the games it just debuffs the enemy's speed.
- Leech Life (Kyuketsu/Suck Blood): Leech Life is most memorable to a young me as being Zubat's damaging move, where it will confuse your Pokemon then start slowly sucking its blood with Leech Life, healing itself in the process. It's functionally similar to Absorb, but the idea is, of course, that the one doing the life-draining is an animal. In a pretty fun manner, the other two Generation I Pokemon that can do it are Paras and Venonat, both based partially on parasitic animals. Later games have been a bit more flexible with giving any Bug Pokemon with fangs Leech Life, and, in a rather inexplicable but very welcome change, Leech Life got buffed a lot so much that it hits like a mid-game move instead of the piddly damage it used to do.
- Pin Missile (Misairu bari/Missile Needle): This one is a bit of a reskinned Fury Attack... and in the first Generation, only Beedrill and Jolteon of all things can use it. It's still counted as a Bug-type move, and later on anything from sentient cacti to metal durians to raccoons with spiky fur can do Pin Missile... and it still counts as a 'Bug' element attack somehow. Okay, this one I don't quite get.
- Twineedle (Daburu Nidoru/Double Needle): How cool is the name "Twineedle", though? Probably a lot less cool than what ten-year-old-me thought it was. It's Beedrill's signature move, because, well, he's got two giant needles (two giant fucking lances if you ask me...). It has since became available to a scattering of other Bug-types (and also Shellder for some reason) but the most appropriate one to share it with Beedrill is fellow bug-with-two-giant-fucking-lances-for-arms Escavalier.
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Flying-type Moves:
Ditto for Flying-type moves. Looking at the list of attacks here, it's honestly not surprising to realize that the Flying-type was originally 'Bird-type', since a lot of these moves aren't actually able to be learned by Bug/Flying Pokemon in the first generation.
- Peck (Tsutsuku/Peck), Wing Attack (Tsubasa de utsu/Wing Strike), Drill Peck (Doriru kuchibasi/Drill Beak): ...because, yeah, a lot of their moves are just 'hey, these are things that birds do to hurt you!' Not too much to say here, these are essentially bird-flavoured versions of Scratch and Slash and Pound.
- Gust (Kazeokoshi/Stir Up Wind): The one that starts to make the Flying-type feel more like its own identity is Gust, which debuted as a Normal-type move until the second generation retconned it. It's pretty simple, the bird flaps its wings to create a small little tornado to buffet your enemy. Granted, Pokemon is missing the traditional "wind" or "air" element that most traditional RPG's have, so a lot of the tropes involving air manipulation tends to be shuffled into the Flying-type. Surprisingly, after eight generations, we don't actually get too many of them!
- Fly (Sora o tobu/Fly): Our final original first-generation HM is Fly, which allows your birds and dragons to fly you to any town you have visited. No real reason why you can't order your Pidgeot to fly down to the areas in the map that you haven't visited, and there are some hilarious Pokemon that can learn Fly... including the wingless Doduo and Dodrio; Golurk (who canonically retracts his arms and legs and manifests rocket afterburners); Pikachu (who uses balloons) and all the small first-stage birds that fit on your palm. In combat, Fly has your Pokemon 'fly to the sky' to avoid attacks before divebombing down... except if you use moves like Thunder or Twister, which will instead deal double damage to the poor bird. That's such a fun little detail.
- Mirror Move (Omugaeshi/Parrot Mimickry): ...ironically, we don't get a parrot Pokemon until the fourth generation. But this is a pretty hilarious one. Because parrots can mimic the noises of what other people can do; a Flying-type Pokemon that does Mirror Move basically copies the same move as the last one it sees. So yeah, if the conditions are right, your little Spearow can summon Draco Meteors or create a Dark Void, because of parrot-mimicking skills. Sure!
- Sky Attack (Goddo Bado/God Bird): Out of the three Kanto legendary birds, only Moltres gets a signature move. Though there's a TM for other birds to learn it. It's basically Flying-type Solarbeam... but I've always loved the fact that its Japanese name is "GOD BIRD". That's such a badass name for what's essentially something that's portrayed as 'the bird divebombs you while it body glows a bit' in all media.
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Poison-type Moves:
After the starter types and the two early-game types, I guess the next most prominent one in the old Kanto games is Poison. So many Pokemon can use poison! And I absolutely love that the first generation has such a wide variance in terms of what counts as a Poison-type Pokemon, from poisonous plants to venomous animals to piles of sentient sludge or gas-baskets. And there's actually a surprising variety of Poison-type moves!
- Poison Sting (Dokubari/Poison Needle): Anything with a fang or a stinger that injects poison gets Poison Sting, which is the requisite 'weak power move'. The original name translates to 'Poison Needle', which answers a huge question I had as a kid as to why Jessie's Arbok always spits a spray of glowing purple thorns at the enemy instead of, y'know, biting the enemy with its huge snake fangs.
- Poison Powder (Doku no kona/Poison Powder), Poison Gas (Doku Gasu/Poison Gas): Not much to say here, this is the Poison-type equivalent to Stun Spore and Sleep Powder. Nearly all the Grass-type Pokemon that can use the trifecta of status ailment powders tend to be part-Poison anyway. Poison Gas does basically the same thing, but it's flavoured differently, as a cloud of poisonous gas... and because Generation I is crazy, the non-Poison type Drowzee can learn this, but neither Koffing nor Gastly -- both Poison-type Pokemon made up of gas -- can learn it. Oh boy!
- Acid (Yokaieki/Corrosive Liquid), Sludge (Hedoro kogeki/Sludge Attack): Another pretty simple move, the animation always shows this with a sickly orange or green liquid... I've always thought that this felt more like some sort of poisonous vomit or digestive fluid, because all the Pokemon that can do this are based on animals or plants. On the other hand, its stronger counterpart, Sludge, is only learnable by more... 'elemental' Pokemon like Muk, Garbodor, Weezing and Swalot. Interesting.
- Smog (Sumoggu/Smog): Smog is even more interesting. On the surface, it's just like Acid or Sludge, with some of the numbers tweaked around. Just a damaging Poison attack, but I guess this one is gas-themed. The thing is, out of the many Pokemon that can learn Smog, a vast majority of them are Fire-types. This is specifically smog, after all, the poisonous, choking smoke caused by air pollution. In fact, at the time of writing, the only Poison-types that can learn Smog naturally are Koffing (who's a ball of poisonous polluted air), Salandit (also part-Fire) and Gastly (also a ball of poison gas; and only for a single game).
- Toxic (Dokudoku/Excessive Poison): Toxic is an interesting one. One of the moves that consistently have TM status in all the games, Toxic allows almost every Pokemon (except for those with fixed moves like Ditto and Wobbuffet) to learn a move that inflicts the enemy with 'harsh poisoning'. Which means the poison damage stacks over time. I guess it's meant to represent all animals and plants being poisonous to some degree if you concentrate the chemicals in their body? Doesn't quite explain how some of the more esoteric Pokemon like the ghosts, rocks, robots or spatial-warping dragons are able to cast Toxic. I've always found Toxic pretty fun for sure.
- Acid Armor (Tokeru/Liquefy): And finally, our final Poison-type move for Generation I is Acid Armor. Which is a bit of a misnomer, because it doesn't involve acid, and it's not quite an armour. Originally only learnable by Vaporeon and Grimer, Acid Armor's Japanese name is 'liquefy', which is why all the animations showing it has the Pokemon in question turn into water. Most of the Pokemon that can learn Acid Armor later on are slime monsters like Milcery and Meltan; ice monsters like Vanillite or Cryogonal; or based on animals with high water content like Tentacool and Manaphy. There was a particularly memorable chapter in the manga with a Vaporeon essentially turning itself into a puddle of water and moving around unseen through the battlefield, that's pretty damn cool.
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Ground-type Moves:
We'll next cover Ground, which I felt has a pretty significant representation in Generation I. Ground and Rock usually go hand-to-hand, but I'm leaving Rock for much later down in the list. Ground gets a surprising amount to do more since it's a bit more wide in terms of the things it encompasses. Burrowing through the ground, breaking the ground... sand, mud... though it's not until later generations that Ground-type moves really become diverse.
- Sand Attack (Sunakake/Sand Attack): Originally a Normal-type status move that gets retconned to Ground, Sand Attack is an attack that kind of makes me wince. Sand in your eyes is painful! This one is pretty fun, it makes your opponent's accuracy fall.
- Dig (Ana o horu/Dig a Hole): Interestingly, originally we don't actually have a requisite 'weak' Ground-type move. The weakest and most readily available was Dig! And Dig functioned like Fly, where your Pokemon disappears for a turn and then attacks in the second turn. Very cool as flavour go, your Pokemon burrows through the ground to attack the enemy!
- Earthquake (Jishin/Earthquake): ...unless the opponent unleashes an Earthquake. Because of course if you're under the ground when someone unleashes a shockwave powerful enough to rock the entire terrain, you're gonna hurt. Earthquake is one of the most visceral moves in the earlier, more primitive-graphics games due to how awesome it is to see the entire screen shake violently. Still one of the most powerful moves, and one of the more desirable 'end-game' moves.
- Fissure (Jiware/Fissure): Fissure is a one-hit-kill move like Guillotine and Horn Drill! Originally, this was exclusive to Diglett, though as with so many weird moves in Generation I, there's a TM out there for other Pokemon to learn it from. Fissure causes, well, a giant fissure to crack open in the ground and swallow your enemy whole. This is a one-hit-KO, apparently... and sometimes I wonder just what makes these moves so deadly-but-inaccurate.
- Bone Club (Honekonbo/Bone Club), Bonemerang (Hone Bumeran/Bone Boomerang): And our final moves here are two moves that are, to this day, still exclusive to Cubone and Marowak. Pretty interesting that Cubone and Marowak of all Pokemon get not one, but two exclusive moves, huh? Kudos for the English translation team to figure out the pun for Bonemerang, and I love the idea here -- Bonemerang strikes twice, once on the way out and once on the way back.
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Ice-type Moves:
Another one of the 'elemental' types; looking at the moves here really shows off why Pokemon, unlike most J-RPG, separates Water and Ice into two distinct types! They are different in terms of 'style', I guess! Again, this feels particularly important in the anime and manga, as well as ending up really feeling distinct in later games when we get dedicated areas to snow-covered mountains or icy caves.
- Aurora Beam (Orora bimu/Aurora Beam); Ice Beam (Reito bimu/Freezing Beam): The 'weak' move, although even Aurora Beam's a step more powerful than the likes of Ember or Water Gun. Ice is among the more 'advanced' types that you don't really encounter until you start evolving your Pokemon or reach the later-game areas; at least in the first couple of generations. Aurora Beam's always an excuse for any animation team to go all out with the animation, and, of course, is named after the Aurora Borealis phenomenon usually seen in icy locales. Ice Beam, meanwhile, is basically the 'Thunderbolt' or 'Flamethrower' for the Ice-type. Pretty damn powerful and useful in the games for sure!
- Blizzard (Fubuki/Blizzard): And Blizzard is the 'Thunder' equivalent, missing more often. Unlike its counterparts like Fire Blast or Thunder, though, being a blanket of icy, snowy winds, Blizzard would later end up having the potential to hit multiple enemies!
- Ice Punch (Reito panchi/Freezing Punch): Not much to say here, it sure is the ice version of Fire/Thunder Punch, originally exclusive to Hitmonchan and Jynx.
- Mist (Shiroi kiri/White Mist), Haze (Kuroi kiri/Black Mist): Oh, wait, these two are counterparts? "White Mist" and "Black Mist" in the original Japanese? Huh! Their effects are contradictory, with Mist offering your allies protection from stat-changing moves, while Haze eliminates any stat-changing moves in battle. Pretty interesting, I guess? I genuinely don't remember a whole ton about either of these moves, though it's cool that they exist, of course.
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Fighting-type Moves:
I'm not sure why I didn't list this one a bit higher up? But I've always felt like Fighting and Psychic are kind of a pair. So! Fighting-types actually have a whole lot of moves even in the first generation, because, well... they're essentially just martial arts moves, made into Pokemon moves! Still not sure why Comet Punch, Dizzy Punch, Mega Punch and Mega Kick aren't retconned to Fighting-types yet. I don't think I'll have much to say here.
- Karate Chop (Karate choppu/Karate Chop): The weak, early-game move! This used to be a Normal-type move in Generation I, despite being only learnable by Machop and Mankey, both Fighting-types. Since it straight-up specifies 'karate'... I'm going to assume it's an error. Though I don't know, Generation I was pretty weird.
- Double Kick (Nidogeri/Double Kick): Another pretty common early-game move, although due to its name, it's just as likely to be learned by non-Fighting-types and by any animal Pokemon with two legs. Again, thanks to a pun, Double Kick (Nidogeri) is learned by the entire Nidoran clan, and the only Fighting-type that learns it is Hitmonlee, who can learn all the kicks.
- Submission (Jigoku guruma/Hell Wheel): Its English name being a reference to a wrestling move (submission hold) and its Japanese name a reference to a Judo manga... which is why none of Submission's anime or game appearances involve an actual submission hold. The move is shown as the Fighting-type hold the enemy and spinning around with it, which is why it does recoil damage.
- Seismic Toss (Chikyu Nage/Earth Toss): Most remembered for its visuals; Seismic Toss is used by various Pokemon in the anime -- Charizard, of course, being the ur-example. You spin around and the god damn Earth itself manifests around you. Its original Japanese name straight-up specifies it as is 'Earth Toss', with Earth being the planet, and the 3D games would take this anime portrayal and run with it, showing the poor enemy being Seismic Tossed tossed into orbit. That said... the actual move is kind of a disappointment, inflicting damage equal to the user's level, one of the few moves that calculates damage bizarrely.
- Counter (Kaunta/Counter): Oh, man, fuck this move. Originally only learned by Hitmonchan (though, again, many others can learn it by TM), Counter is the biggest 'fuck you' move... but also such a flavourful move for a martial artist -- particularly a boxer -- to do. If the opponent hits you with a physical attack and the damage doesn't kill your Pokemon, your Pokemon returns the blow with twice the damage. With Mirror Coat introduced a couple generations later, it's the ultimate 'fuck you!' and is the bane of so many Nuzlocke runs.
- Low Kick (Ketaguri/Kick Down): This was, interestingly enough, originally the signature move of the Machop line before it basically becomes another common early-level Fighting-type move. This one is specifically based on ketaguri, a sumo technique that involves a combination of an ankle-sweep while slapping the shoulder or pulling the arm simultaneously. Low Kick deals extra damage depending on the enemy's weight, which is a pretty fun detail!
- Jump Kick (Tobigeri/Dropkick), High Jump Kick (Tobihizageri/Jumping Knee Kick): Hitmonlee, by the way, has three signature moves (at least up to Generation IV where more Pokemon can learn this), and unlike many of the other signature moves on this page, all three aren't some weird obscure TM somewhere in the first-generation game. Both Jump Kick and High Jump Kick (or Hi Jump Kick originally) are basically high-damage moves that will deal damage to the attacker if it misses and crashes onto the ground. It's honestly hilarious that Hitmonlee got two signature moves that basically do the same thing, but with slightly tweaked numbers! The mental image of poor Hitmonlee doing a dramatic Kamen Rider kick only for the enemy to sidestep it while Hitmonlee crumples to the ground is kind of hilarious, not going to lie.
- Rolling Kick (Mawashigeri/Roundhouse Kick): And you've got Rolling Kick, which is just a generic damage move that might cause the enemy to flinch, shared by Hitmonlee and later his fellow alternate-evolution Hitmontop, and up to now, the only one that can learn it after the case is Marshadow. That's a small club for such an underwhelming move!
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Psychic-type Moves:
There is a surprising amount of Psychic moves, though not all of them are damaging. It's... it's interesting just how many of them there are, and how many of them basically revolve around old-school superpowers like teleportation and psychokinesis. Like the Grass-type, they had a lot of fun making up for the wacky things that the Psychic-types of this game can do!
The Psychic types are just so bizarre in general, and the sheer variety of their moves really do make for very entertaining visuals in the anime or manga.
- Confusion (Nenriki/Mindpower), Psybeam (Saiko kosen/Psycho Beam): The basic, weak attack of the bunch is Confusion, and, as its English name implies, sometimes it causes confusion! Not always, though. It's confusing! This one can be learned by a lot of non-Psychic-types, most interestingly by a lot of the early-route moth and butterflies like Butterfree, Venomoth and Dustox. I guess it's just showing basic telekinetic mindpower? The anime, games and manga tend to be pretty cut-and-loose on whether these damaging psychic moves attack you by tossing you around with psychic powers, or do some Professor-X-style 'mentally fry your mind' thing. Psybeam is a stronger version of it, and used to be shown as a series of psychedelic rings.
- Psywave (Saikowebu/Psychowave): Originally only learnable through TM in the first generation, Psywave is often described as 'odd' or 'variable', and there's a whole formula that differs in calculating damage. It's level-based, though, which means it isn't practical or useful, but hey, it's weird! Psychics are weird! Also, I do find it fun that so many of the original Japanese names use 'psycho' instead of 'psy'. Which, of course, is short for 'psychokinesis' and not 'psychopath', but still.
- Psychic (Saikokineshisu/Psychokinesis): And here we have the big bad high-damage, always-accurate Psychic-type move, Psychic! Not a whole ton to say here, it's actually a recurring TM in all the games and I've always found it fascinating. All the Psychic-types and most of the Dark- and Ghost-types can learn Psychic, but then there's a lot in the TM list that, surprisingly, can go full-on Jedi on us. Not really a whole ton to say here; when it's shown the visuals tend to be purply and wibbly-wobbly.
- Hypnosis (Saimin jutsu/Hypnotic Technique): Psychic-types have a lot of fun, wacky status moves. Hypnosis is one of the more prevalent ones. Obviously Hypno, the Pokemon based on a hypnotist has Hypnosis and puts enemies to sleep, but you've also got a bunch of Pokemon whose only business of learning Hypnosis is that they've got a swirl in their body somewhere. Like Poliwag, or Glameow, or Spinda! That's funny.
- Agility (Kosoku ido/High-Speed Movement): This one buffs your speed, and I'm not sure why this is Psychic-type since only maybe three or four Psychic-types learn this move naturally. I'm not sure why this is Psychic-type while something like Focus Energy or Extreme Speed is counted as Normal-type... though I guess this has something to do with the mental state or something? Again, it is actually quite interesting seeing just how many non-damaging Psychic attacks there are, and how a bunch of them are actually available to a surprisingly wide range of Pokemon species.
- Meditate (Yoga no pozu/Yoga Pose): Whether you go with 'meditate' or 'yoga pose' (though it does explain all the visuals in the manga and anime), this is just a 'focus your mind' trick to increase your power.
- Amnesia (Dowasure/Memory Lapse): I've always loved the idea behind Amnesia. It's a generic defense-buff move, but the flavour, I feel, is that you're so doofy that you completely forget about the damage you take. So obviously, the anime, manga and TCG really likes to associate this with the Slowpoke line. That's fun!
- Rest (Nemuru/Sleep): It's all in the mind, I guess? Rest is a very, very common move, I feel, and the concept of it is pretty funny. Your Pokemon goes into a self-inflicted Sleep state for a set amount of turns, but recovers all their HP. Again, I'm not quite sure why it's Psychic-type instead of Normal-type, but I guess the recovery is supernatural? I remembered being quite flummoxed with Rest when I played through Generation III as a kid.
- Dream Eater (Yume kui/Eat Dream): Bizarrely, despite Drowzee and Hypno's dex entries talking about them feeding on dreams... they can't learn this move naturally! Dream Eater is exclusive originally to the Gastly line, though, again, there's a TM for it. It's a pretty interesting move, it's basically Giga Drain that only affects your enemy if they're asleep. Kind of an impractical combo since you need to make sure that Hypnosis hits, and it holds for the next turn when you use Dream Eater. Flavour-wise, though? Yeah, Gengar just fucking eats your dream, and in some of its fictional appearances, it's basically represented with the Pokemon giving you a terrifying nightmare. Honestly, I do feel like this might actually suit the Ghost type a bit better?
- Barrier (Baria/Barrier), Reflect (Rifurekuta/Reflector), Light Screen (Hikari no kabe/Wall of Light): All three of these are kinda-sorta similar flavour-wise, though Barrier is different compared to the other two. All three of them are essentially conjuring up a psychic shield or wall! Barrier is just a defense boost, though. Reflect and Light Screen are both known as 'walls' in the lingo of the fandom, where you set up these walls to reduce all damage by half over a couple of turns. Reflect reduces physical damage, while Light Screen does so for special damage -- again, the idea tends to be that a specially bulky Pokemon goes up to set up shields for the rest of the party. Barrier's mostly learned by Psychic or Ice types, but both Reflect and Light Screen can be learned by a loooot of different Pokemon out there.
- Teleport (Terepoto/Teleport): One that's literally noted to be completely useless in battle, Teleport is a pretty fun gimmick for its original exclusive user, Abra. Abra has only one move, Teleport, which means that it's going to be a pretty teaching moment when you first see one of them and they teleport away when you try to weaken them. That's really the only point in Teleport -- to run away from battle. Or to teleport back to the last city you visited. It's a move quite literally just added for flavour in the game, although in the anime many Psychic types use this to basically Nightcrawler their way through a fight, avoiding all sorts of damage. Not actually possible in the games!
- Kinesis (Supun mage/Spoon Bend): Exclusive to Kadabra and Alakazam because, of course, they're the only ones carrying spoons. This, somehow, 'confounds the enemy' so that they'll miss more easily. Wacky!
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Rock-type Moves:
...are there only two Rock-type moves in the entirety of the first generation? Huh. I guess there really isn't much you could do with rocks? It's worth noting that there was no pure-Rock-type Pokemon in the first generation, so they really didn't quite have as good of a flavour for this one until later on, I suppose. And, well, this and the next couple of types are kind of an example of how hilariously unbalanced the first generation is.
- Rock Throw (Iwa otoshi/Rock Drop): ...oh, hey, you lob a rock at your enemy. That's the essence of the Rock-type.
- Rock Slide (Iwa nadare/Rock Slide): ...and you drop a lot of rocks at your enemy. Rock Slide actually sounds like a natural disaster and in later games hits both enemies in the battlefield, and is actually pretty damn cool. But man, it's like they didn't even try with Rock-types in this first generation.
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Ghost-type Moves:
Now we're entering the two 'elusive' types in Generation One, each of them only represented by a single evolutionary line. Still, a bunch of others get to learn Ghost-type moves, though none of them are very good. I don't think the flavour of Ghost type attacks will get expanded until the second and third generations.
- Lick (Shita de nameru/Tongue Lick): I'm not entirely sure why they thought that licking is a Ghost-type move. I mean, Gastly and Haunter do a lot of licking with their cartoony tongues in the anime, but I'm genuinely baffled why
- Night Shade (Naito heddo/Night Head): The actual damaging move for Ghost-types, Night Shade, is pretty cool sounding! Pretty obviously, it's exclusive to the only Ghost-type line, Gastly, originally... and it deals damage according to the enemy's level. That's always weird, and maybe intended to show that Ghosts are weird? The addition of traditional moves in subsequent generation does make Night Shade more of an odd move that you toss away in favour for more reliable Ghost-type moves pretty quickly for sure.
- Confuse Ray (Ayashi hikari/Eerie Light): The name's pretty simple, it's a glowing ball of light that causes confusion. Its Japanese name, 'eerie light', gives a bit more of a context, though, which makes Confuse Ray make more sense. It could be a will-o-wisp style 'ghostly' light, a more supernatural light created by yokai-based or cryptid-based Pokemon like Vulpix and Lapras... or just general bioluminescence by Pokemon like Chinchou or Lileep. I do find it interesting that this move is still classified as a 'ghostly' move, but it fits, flavour-wise, I guess?
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Dragon-type Moves:
Dragons also only have a single representation, the Dratini line... but they only have a single Dragon-type move. It's weird, but I suppose the appeal of Dragon-types and other powerful Pokemon is that they can learn most of the other elemental attacks and channel those? Like the Ghost-type, the flavour of Dragon-types don't really get expanded until the third generation.
- Dragon Rage (Ryu no Ikari/Dragon's Rage): The only Dragon-type move in the first generation games is Dragon Rage. It's essentially just breathing fire because, well, that's what dragons are known to do. In the anime and later games, Dragon Rage (and most Dragon-type breath weapons) tended to be coloured as blue-white or purple-white flames, though, to make it distinct? The idea that dragons can hurt dragons kind of falls flat because Dragon Rage deals fixed damage, and nowhere useful by the point of the game that you can get yourself a Dratini or even evolve a Gyarados, and it's not until the next generation that 'Dragon' feels like a proper type with a proper batch of moves. Oh well, it's weird.
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Dark-type Moves:
One move got retconned from Normal to Dark-type in Generation II, which... I'm not entirely sure why they didn't just make a brand-new move with the same stats since they're certainly not unwilling to have some overlap, but... eh, have Bite.
- Bite (Kamitsuku/Bite): Pretty obviously, Bite used to be Normal-type, basically ranking along moves like Tackle, Scratch and Pound in terms of 'it's a thing that animals do'. When the second-generation games came around, Bite got retconned into being Dark-type, which suddenly meant that many early-route Pokemon suddenly had access to a non-Normal-type move potentially very early on. I think that's sort of a way to get both Dark-types and Poison-types to both show up very early in the game in the form of moves? I've always found it interesting that of all things it's Bite that they consider 'Dark' or 'evil' among the Normal-type moves (if anything, biting is one of the more natural things an animal can do in self defense.), and not something like Fury Attack or Rage or something. I've remembered Bite as being Dark-type since forever, so it's actually kind of interesting to remember that this used to just be one of the many, many generic Normal-type moves out there.
That's a lot of Normal-type moves, huh? Which was why this one took so long to write. Next up I'll be doing Generation II and III together, I think, and I know that in subsequent generations most of the moves introduced are signature moves. We'll see how things go.
