Certainly beats Bellsprout almost kicking the shit out of Ash.
that match was pretty enjoyable iirc, twists and a fun ending though I haven't seen it in like 10+ years.
the darkrai guy seem really dumb though, what an overpowered character. More or less rules out any chance of ash winning (even though that rarely happens, it is still a kick in the teeth).
i enjoyed the addition of darkrai because I'm (obv) a fan of ubers and whatever gets ash destroyed the fastest works for me.
I think the de-valuing of legendaries comes naturally with time and technology as people are slowly becoming more confident and capable in handling them
I've read somewhere that the guy with Darkrai/Latios might represent the newbies who trade over powerful Pokémon to their game to sweep the Elite Four, because they can't do it the proper way.
Or people who hack their way to victory. Can't really remember which theory was more prevalent.
Well, didn't the Frontier Brains in the "Battle Frontier" season use Legendaries?
Too bad it wasn't gradual. It was just "a wild guy with legendaries appears" and it only happened like once. Next occasion Ash and co. see a legendary they still go "ooh" and "aah".
That's the impression I get, but if the writers intended it like that they would've made that legendary trainer much less respected by the other characters.
Yeah, but they are special people that pretty much proved themselves worthy of wielding them by becoming a frontier brain.