Most Pokémon games aren't known for their storytelling, and Sword and Shield in particular received heavy criticism on the story front. However, the Pokémon anime made one simple change that instantly turned Galar's villain from unreasonable to understandable.
The storyline of Sword and Shield revolved around the Power Spots where Pokémon are able to dynamax and the Galar particles that they generate. Leader of the Pokémon League, Chairman Rose, is very concerned about the Galar region potentially running out of fuel to power their grid and believes that the Galar particles are the key to infinite power. It all sounds reasonable initially, but Galar's power problems are explicitly stated to be a thousand years away, and Rose is unwilling to wait even a single day to enact his plan. The question that goes unanswered in Sword and Shield is simply this: why is Rose so impatient about solving this problem?
The Pokémon anime adapts the main story of Sword and Shield in a four-episode arc, inserting Ash and Goh into the story in a more active role than the player is ever given in-game. Chairman Rose doesn't just want to solve the problem of running out of energy in a thousand years--he's explicitly trying to find a solution to the energy crisis that brings an end to coal mining as soon as possible so that no child will need to suffer the way he did ever again.
Rose's New Backstory Better Explains his Actions
In Sword and Shield, no backstory is offered for Rose at all, which makes his plan look more than a little crazy. While Rose's background and actions in the anime still aren't the most logical, they at least make sense on an emotional level. The issue of getting away from coal is very close to Rose's heart, so of course, he's not thinking rationally when the solution is nearly at hand. It also helps that the anime doesn't set Rose's plan on the exact same day as the tournament finals, and that champion Leon is more actively opposed to Rose than he is in the games. All these factors come together to present a much more coherent version of events than the games do, and Rose's new backstory is the glue that holds it all together.
Even if a good story isn't usually a selling point for Pokémon games, there's no reason that they can't have better, more skillfully told stories than they do. If anything, this adaptation of the storyline proves that the changes Sword and Shield needed to improve weren't all that difficult to implement. Fans will have to wait for Scarlet and Violet's debut to see if the storytelling has improved, but if not, the Pokémon anime will be there to straighten it out once again.
