Gymnasium

Concept art of a Pokémon Gym for Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee!

Gyms (Japanese: ジム, Hepburn: Gym) are locations introduced in Generation I.

Description

Gyms are buildings located throughout various regions in the World of Pokémon, most commonly within towns and cities. A Gym is run by its top member, a Gym Leader. Pokémon Gyms serve a couple of different purposes, one of which is to help in the training of a Pokémon Trainer's Pokémon. These members strengthen their Pokémon inside the Gym with the help of the Gym Leader, and will challenge anyone looking to battle the Gym Leader.

The second purpose is to test the skills of traveling Trainers looking to enter into the regional League. In order to test their skills, a Gym Leader will engage in a Pokémon battle with the Trainer. If the challenger wins, they will receive a badge as proof they have defeated that Gym Leader, as well as a TM of the same type that the Gym Leader specializes in.

Gyms usually specialize in a certain type of Pokémon, meaning that all members carry a team of Pokémon with one common type. Additionally, most Gyms contain puzzles which a trainer must bypass in order to reach the Gym Leader. This is more a common factor in the core series than in the anime.

Trivia

• There could be more than eight gyms in each region in the anime due to the fact that Gary and other characters have shown their badge cases to Ash, usually having a few different badges than he has.
  • The existence of alternative gyms can also be proved by the fact that characters say that there is "a" gym in a town, not "the" next gym, even when there is one badge left to earn, where he would say that "the" next gym was there if there were not, and by the fact that Roxie, the gym leader of Virbank City, acted as the final Unova gym leader for Ash as opposed to Drayden.
• In the Generation VII Alola games, gyms were replaced with The Rite of the Island Challenge.
  • In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon, an unofficial Gym in Malie City was introduced, which allows residents of Alola to experience the challenge of a Gym.