Hariyama (Makuhita)

Gravisbellator sumo solisamans

Overview

Hariyama were not the first pokémon to be tamed on Alola. They aren’t even native to the islands. But their importation marked the start of training as a sport, pokémon battles as an alternative to war, and the island challenge itself.

Hariyama are eager to train, generally submissive, and terrifyingly powerful. For the first time in Alolan history a fairly average pokémon trainer could reliably wield a companion with the strength of two dozen soldiers. Training went from an accessory to hunting, agriculture, or scholarship to a means to political and military power. The island challenge was instituted to present aspiring trainers with a relatively peaceful way to prove themselves to the tapus as potential kahuna material and, later, as a means of replacing the monarch.

Today the political significance has been stripped away from the island challenge and scores of species are routinely trained. Hariyama still remains one of the best choices trainers have available given their relatively modest care requirements, willingness to work, and raw power. They also have very distinct personalities and can make good companions long after the island challenge ends.

Physiology

Both makuhita and hariyama are classified as pure fighting-types.

Makuhita are stocky bipeds. Thin, fuzzy fur coats their body. Most of this fur is yellow, but black stripes around the neck and hands are common. The hands have three very short fingers and a thumb and are nearly useless for anything but punches and push-ups. Makuhita generally have red rings on their cheeks and a long tuft of hair on top of their head. They have ear slits that let them detect sounds but not necessarily where they are coming from. They have a high body fat content for fighting-types.

Hariyama, by contrast, have virtually no body fat. In fact, they have so little that it can cause them health problems (see Illness). Evolution makes them substantially bulkier, but this bulk is almost entirely solid muscle. Their hands are giant and flat with three wide fingers. The hair on the upper half of their body falls out, and their skin is very light grey. A tan plate of armor on their chest helps protect their internal organs, and a bony blue visor on their head protects the brain and outer ears. Hariyama’s lower half retains its fur, but replaces the old yellow coat with a blue one. They gain a series of flaps around their waist that help them regulate their internal temperature while exercising.

Hariyama can grow up to eight feet tall and can weigh 1100 pounds. Hariyama typically live for twelve years in the wild and thirty in captivity.

Behavior

Fighting-types tend to be split into two groups. The first are naturally powerful pokémon that always act feral, even when raised from birth in captivity. The other are relentlessly focused on improving their body and martial arts skills through training. Hariyama are a quintessential example of a Type II fighting type.

Wild hariyama prefer to form dojos with other Type IIs and humans. Lucario are their preferred pokémon partners in Alola. This partnership instinct is because makuhita can struggle to feed themselves as they are herbivores that lack useful fingers or a prehensile tail and are not tall enough to browse. Absent partners they must feed by hitting berry trees until the fruit (or the tree itself) fall down. Then they do push-ups to eat the berries off of the ground. This method is inefficient enough that makhuita and hariyama without a mixed-species dojo can spend up to two-thirds of their waking hours eating.

In exchange for the assistance with feeding (and tying their hair), hariyama will use their bulk to scare away any would-be predators. Lucario are skilled and have fearsome ranged attacks that struggle against large, slow predators. Hariyama can take on almost any large wild pokémon in Alola and overpower them.

Hariyama revel in challenging anything approaching their power. They are known to take on buses, trains, and even airplanes during landing and takeoff. Members of the Melemele dojo routinely pick fights with visiting salamence. Hawlucha occasionally visit the western half of the island to test themselves as well. Cameras in the Poni Colosseum have recorded several matches between kommo-o and hariyama with makuhita and jangmo-o sitting in the audience.

Makuhita are less aggressive in finding challengers. They mostly fight within their dojo, although they will defend themselves from anything that attacks them. Some particularly oblivious makuhita on Poni Island have mistakenly attacked exeggutor only to get launched one hundred back. The exeggutor make no attempt to warn makuhita of their mistake and have even been seen shuffling into groves and standing dead still whenever makuhita approach.

Husbandry

Makuhita have fairly normal food needs, although they will need their berries handed to them. They should be fed until they refuse food. Mint leaves are a favorite snack of the species. Water bowls should be tall enough for the pokémon to drink out of it mid-push up. Housebreaking usually isn’t an issue but they do learn fastest when trained with something close to what humans use. Small bowls filled with litter or holes in the ground outside do the trick.

The main problem with makuhita training is the training.

Makuhita rise at dawn and they go to sleep at sunset. Between the two they are almost exclusively concerned with food and exercise. Trainers who want a break can simply give makuhita a berry pile tall enough to eat. On the trail makuhita view hiking and carrying gear as an exercise. They can also be left alone with barbells or a punching bag while their trainer goes about their business.

Ideally, a makuhita trainer will be very fit and capable of exercising alongside their makuhita. Being able to teach the pokémon martial arts moves is the best way to gain their respect. Balancing their strengths and weaknesses, makuhita is the best partner possible on the island challenge for athletic, motivated trainers who want to be the best and are willing to put in the work. Otherwise, they should be avoided in favor of Type I fighting-types like passimian, pancham, crabrawler, and scrafty.

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Hariyama are more concerned with showing off their strength than improving it. Unlike makuhita, hariyama are willing to go into pokéballs for several hours a day (and all of the night) if they are routinely given worthy fights. In the absence of high-level battles, they will need a gym with weights of at least a metric ton. After an island challenge is over hariyama can be safely released on either Poni or Melemele if their trainer is unwilling to make the lifestyle or monetary concessions needed to raise a hariyama.

Illness

Very young makuhita and very old hariyama often develop cancers or respiratory problems. Most of these problems can be easily treated if caught early. The line can also catch and transmit several common diseases in humans such as influenza.

The main health problem that hariyama suffer from is internal organ damage. Hariyama have very little body fat, relying instead on layers of powerful muscles to protect themselves. When flexed, the muscles form a nigh-unbreakable shield. If caught off guard the shockwave from an attack can rupture an organ and potentially kill them. A hariyama should always be made aware that it is about to go into battle and even playful sneak attacks should be avoided.

Evolution

When makuhita are strong enough, experienced enough, and have stored enough food, they will flash evolve. Makuhita drop all training and spend all of their waking hours eating in the leadup to evolution. After evolution they will set out on a path of wanton destruction to test their newfound strength. Evolution typically occurs between four and five years of age in the wild, and two to four in captivity.

Trainers wishing to hasten the process should provide their makuhita with plenty of training and interesting fights. For the year after evolution ends the new hariyama will need to be used in several battles a week against worthy opponents. Otherwise, they will begin to seek out their own challenges, some of which can be quite costly.

Battle

Hariyama is one of the most physically powerful pokémon in the world. They are also very, very tough and can keep on fighting at full strength for hours. While slow, this seldom matters because eventually a hariyama will land a hit and it is difficult for most pokémon to land meaningful blows on them. They fight mainly with their open palm slaps, shockwaves, and thrown rock attacks. Hariyama have a few other tricks, such as whirlwind and elementally charged punches, but for the most part hariyama does one thing and they do it terrifyingly well. Any team without a solid hariyama counter or a few checks will be crushed by a well-trained hariyama with a competent trainer.

Unfortunately for hariyama their counters abound in the competitive circuits. Alakazam are their hardest counter since the psychic-type can hover above shockwaves and teleport away from whirlwinds, thrown rocks, and physical assaults while simultaneously tripping hariyama up with utility moves and hitting them in the brain. Gardevoir, espeon, mega slowbro, and mime sr. are not quite as effective but can still usually take down a hariyama.

Floating steel-types and very fast ranged fliers can also put a stop to hariyama. Neither has much to fear from rock attacks (due to natural resistance or speed) and can stay well out of range of physical blows and shockwaves. The fliers are usually strong enough to power through a whirlwind, and the steel-types are too heavy to really care. This makes the relatively common bronzong, skarmory, magnezone, corviknight, vikavolt, yanmega, dragonite, noivern, and talonflame solid counters to hariyama. More exotic picks such as harpyre and metagross are even more effective.

Quickstall teams can also make hariyama much less useful. Their members are usually fast enough to outpace hariyama, bulky enough to take the shockwaves or thrown rocks, and tricky enough to slowly wear their enemy down while keeping themselves healthy.

Finally, bulky ghost types such as South Isle decidueye, dusknoir, golurk, cursola, and jellicent can phase through the worst of hariyama’s hits while using a variety of tricks to bypass hariyama’s natural defenses. These matches tend to be close and hariyama prevails more often than not, but the hariyama’s sweep ends very shortly afterwards.

Almost every professional trainer has at least one counter to hariyama at the ready. But a clever hariyama trainer can still play the long game, wear down or take out the checks, and then unleash an unstoppable force at the end. Hariyama can also be played as a mid-game wallbreaker, since they can break down common stall pokémon and allow a teammate to sweep. It is also inadvisable to try and set up a sweep with a pokémon hariyama checks so long as the fighting-type is still reasonably healthy.

If the metagame were any less hostile to hariyama it would be the single most threatening pokémon commonly held by professional trainers. Even as things are hariyama is still one of the biggest threats in the world and skilled professional and amateur trainers should always have a counter plan in mind.

On the island challenge makuhita are effective in battle but require patience. They are reasonably bulky and quite powerful but rather slow. The trick is setting up a situation where the makuhita can get in a solid hit or two. If this is possible they can defeat most young pokémon. If it isn’t they will probably be worn down and defeated in the end.

Hariyama’s rather limited pool of tricks makes them a good choice for the island challenge. Simple hand slaps with a few rock and seismic attacks to hit distant foes is all hariyama really needs. Be wary of the counters listed above but otherwise hariyama are likely to carry the match.

Acquisition

Makuhita can be found on Route 2 and on the eastern end of Poni. Only makuhita at least three feet tall may be captured. They require a Class I license to capture or purchase.

Hariyama can be found in many of the same places as makuhita. The ones that do not wish to go with a trainer have already been captured by the Melemele Dojo and the Poni National Park rangers. All others are legal catches with a Class III license (purchase requires a Class I, adoption is impossible as unwanted makuhita and hariyama are released to the wild).

Both stages are very insistent upon a proper capture battle. If a trainer cannot overpower them with any single team member the pokémon will refuse to listen to them.

Breeding

Hariyama can be bred in captivity but they strongly prefer being released to the wild to reproduce. The species can form emotional attachments to fighting-types of any gender. However, only heterosexual pairings with other hariyama or closely related primates will produce offspring. Mating tends to happen after a hariyama’s tenth birthday but they reach sexual maturity upon evolution. Older hariyama often settle down, have kids, and devote the rest of their lives to training makuhita.

Relatives

The Alolan hariyama is slightly taller and substantially heavier than the Asian hariyama (G. sumo sumo). This is due to the abundance of food in Alola.

Asian hariyama live in the temperate portion of Asia’s Pacific coast, from central China to Korea and Japan. They typically live in caves and only leave to eat. Alolan hariyama sometimes take shelter in caves from bad storms but otherwise avoid them. There is no consensus on why Asian hariyama prefer to live underground when they are large herbivores that need to spend several hours a day grazing.