

In the anime, it is shown to be capable of reading the thoughts of other life forms.

Professor Laventon's research observed that Unown resemble human writing from other lands, though no one took him seriously. Certain Unown loose in the Hisui region were capable of repelling Poké Balls that contained Pokémon, preventing them from being battled. In Generation VIII, Hidden Power is Unown's signature move. It is said that an "odd power" emerges when more than one Unown come together. Unown has an unknown connection to Arceus. Either way, it can be detected by the Pokégear radio, which interprets it as the melody of the Azure Flute. The Pokédex and Professor Oak's research disagree on whether Unown communicates using electromagnetic waves or telepathy. Unown can move its appendages independently like tentacles or fingers. It is a mystery whether Unown predates or postdates written language, and therefore which one is based on the other. Though each of its forms has a counterpart in the Latin alphabet, Unown is said to resemble ancient writing and hieroglyphs.

All 26 alphabetic forms of Unown have fully open eyes, while the two punctuation forms have half-closed eyes. It is entirely black, except for its white sclerae. Unown is a flat, thin Pokémon shaped like an eye with appendages that make it resemble a letter or a punctuation mark. In Generation II, its shape is determined by its individual values in Generation III, it is determined by its personality value from Generation IV onwards, it is determined by a separate form identifier. The Unown forms are chronicled in the Unown Mode and the Unown Report. In Generation III, two new forms were introduced as well: ? (question mark) and ! (exclamation mark). In Generation II, there were 26 Unown forms based on Latin alphabet characters. All of them are known as One form (Japanese: あるすがた a form), as seen in the Pokédex.

While it is not known to evolve into or from any other Pokémon, Unown has 28 different forms. Unown ( Japanese: アンノーン Unknown) is a Psychic-type Pokémon introduced in Generation II.
