Adaptational Badass in Anime & Manga.
Works with their own pages
- In Batman Ninja, The Joker is a much more formidable fighter than how he's usually portrayed in the comics, being able to match Batman in a one-on-one swordfight during the climax.
- In Bokurano, Takami "Komo" Komoda is this in the anime. In the manga, she's shown to be somewhat more emotionally fragile than her anime counterpart, who's one of the few mature enough to have some idea of what they're getting into when they signed up to pilot Zearth, and refuses to be demoralized by her father's death or the fact that she'll join him soon when her turn comes to fight. The same goes for her ability to pilot Zearth. In the manga, she fared poorly against her opponent, who was on the brink of winning when he apparently noticed she was similar to his dead daughter, and after listening to her perform on the piano, let her father kill him. In the anime, Zearth falls into a pit trap, but Komo refuses to let that stop her, and knocks the enemy robot down with a Wave-Motion Gun before easily performing the coup de grace.
- Syaoran Li to an extent in the Cardcaptor Sakura anime. While still under the same inability to catch cards himself, stipulations allow him to earn several cards of his own, most of which he is rather adept with. This allows him to act as a far more effective rival for Sakura, even earning his own trial in the Final Judgement. Even after losing all his cards to Sakura, his acts in assisting and protecting her often prove astonishing, with him suggested to still be at a similar or higher level of magical power than her by the closing movie (albeit partly due to lacking a plot point of the manga that rendered Sakura unmatchable in power).
- Cat's Eye: Lupin's Bride. In the manga, the girls find out her plan rather easily (since she doesn't resemble the woman she's impersonating at all), and Hitomi casually dispatches her with a single blow before stealing her identity and eventually turning her over to the police. The TV adaptation portrays her as more cunning and capable, and fixes the identity theft problem by having her actually use a lifelike mask to impersonate the art expert, with Hitomi only finding out the truth because of a coincidence the impostor hadn't foreseen. She even manages to turn the tables on the sisters after her men capture Ai, and is about to kill the three until she learns who their father is. And most importantly, she manages to evade capture this time.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard (V Series): As V is a Continuity Reboot of the main series, several characters change a bit.
- Aichi is far more competent than his main counterpart. While in the original he was known in the first season for loosing frequently (as expected from a total beginner), here, with the same amount of experience, has a never-ending winning streak and is able to go up against members of the very vicious and experienced Foo Fighters and defeat them with ease.
- Morikawa is a zigzagged example. In the original, he had an unhealthy obsession with Grade 3 units, leading him to make extremely unbalanced decks. However, whenever he was tricked into using a proper deck he was exceptionally skilled, able to pull feats like mastering Kai's deck without looking at it, and giving even the most powerful fighters a really hard time. In the V Series, Morikawa is reasonable about deck building, and therefore he has a far better winning ratio, but he lacks the fighting skill of his main counterpart and cannot touch the weight class of the more experienced fighters.
- In V Series, Ibuki runs a Deletor deck instead of a Star-Vader one, with the former's "Delete" skill being far more powerful than the "Lock" the latter has. In addition, he has PSYQualia, which is basically a superpower.
- Not a spoiler for those familiar with the manga, but Kai possesses both PSYQualia AND the Grade 4 Dragonic Nouvelle Vague. Even better, neither of those is mentioned ever again, because according to him he doesn't need them. This is in contrast to the original, where Kai felt like he was left behind because he didn't have that edge.
- Shinemon was a badass cardfighter in the original too, but here he has a Grade 5 unit. That was UNHEARD-OF.
- In the original Cutey Honey series, Natsuko was mostly a Damsel in Distress and Honey's friend/potential lesbian lover. In the 2004 live-action movie, the Re: Cutie Honey OVA series, and the Cutey Honey A Go-Go manga, she's a badass adult policewoman with a talent for using firearms (and still is Honey's potential lesbian lover).
- The Dragon Adam Smasher gets this in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. In Cyberpunk 2077 a properly specced V can kill him in a matter of minutes, but here he’s a truly a Lightning Bruiser & Implacable Man that easily shrugs off hits far more severe than the bullets and grenades that a player can kill him with, and has Super-Speed thanks to a Sandevistan. In addition he's able to No-Sell hacks, which in his other appearances he's been especially vulnerable to.
- Barda in the Deltora Quest books was a pretty competent warrior able to hold his ground against a Vraal which is a born and bred killing machine and get a sneak attack on a Ol among other things. The Deltora Quest anime however turns Barda into an outright superhuman Master Swordsmen capable of single handedly killing an Ak-Baba
which is a beast that can kill Dragons in the books, and in the manga version Barda even lifts a huge boulder in another display of Super-Strength something he couldn't do in the books. The Hero Lief is also more combat-wise in the anime than he was in the books killing multiple monsters and villains whereas in the original series he only really killed one big monster (Gellick). Jasmine on the other hand gets Adaptational Wimp being more girly in the contrast to the books, where she is an unabashed Action Girl. - In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the Breathing Styles’ elemental effects are packed with greater visual flair in the anime, and even some Demon Blood Arts as well, making both the Demon Slayers and the Demons look a tad more impressive and stronger than they looked in the manga. The effects of Zenitsu’s Thunder Breathing and Tanjiro’s Hinokami Kagura attacks stick out in particular (the difference between Hinokami Kagura’s Clear Blue Sky in the anime and manga is like night and day). All that visual treat in the anime ironically works against the fact that the audience shouldn’t perceive all the elements for the Breathing Styles as happening literally.
- The Digimon franchise has Gotsumon. Several series, which are AU to each other, have the little guy as a Recurrer with the same or similar personality and voice portrayal. Each version tends to be badder than the last. Digimon Adventure? A cute little guy who'd rather party than fight, his death (along with that of his partner, Pumpkinmon) was used to show how much of a Bad Boss the arc's villain was. Digimon Frontier? His tiny little pebble attack has grown into the ability to create giant boulders and he is able to hold off enemy enforcers who, according to their stats (type, level, element, etc.), should stomp him like a bug without even knowing they'd done so. He can now become Meteormon, a Palette Swap who surprises everyone by being ultra-powerful. Digimon Data Squad? let's make him bad again, but good at it! He bedevils the team for the entirety of their first extended stay in the digital world, then becomes Meteormon. They laugh at his dramatic, Large Ham-moment-prefaced transformation into himself, but with lighter coloring for all of two seconds before he starts wiping the floor with them.
- WarGreymon began its life in the virtual pets series as a Power-Up Letdown for MetalGreymon, and was widely reviled for being relatively weak for its level, having the lowest possible lifespan and even having an abnormally high after battle injury rate. Over time, as a result of animated adaptations, his flaws tend to be glossed over, lending him a needed air of competence.
- In Digimon Adventure: (2020), Mimi, Takeru, and Hikari are more assertive and less dependent on the other kids than they were in the original series.
- Also from the same series, the Chosen Ones' partner Digimon have beefed up a lot, with four of them getting not just one, but two Mega forms.
- This also applies to the villains, with Devimon and Ogremon being much more ruthless and competent than their original counterparts. Devimon in particular gets to evolve all the way to Mega. SkullKnightmon and Calamaramon are also far deadlier fighters than their original incarnations, with SkullKnightmon having several new unnamed attacks that use seemingly random parts of their armor and the ability to evolve without DeadlyAxemon while Calamaramon uses camouflage to set up ambushes.
- Quite appropriately for a show notorious for Big Damn Movie, the Doraemon movies all inevitably turn the main cast of four normal 10-year-olds and a Robot Buddy into total badasses who willingly face terrifying enemies and odds to save the timestream/the world/a foreign world/whatever. It’s even a meme in the Japanese internet fanbase how inevitable this and Adaptational Nice Guy is. It’s especially egregious with Nobita, the This Loser Is You main protagonist and basically the Japanese counterpart of Charlie Brown, who, even with his patheticness being downplayed in newer reboots, is still a wimpy, cowardly, lazy, somewhat selfish, unmotivated kid explicitly below average in every area, yet in the movies is a total hidden badass of a Kid Hero who will bravely stare genocidal plant aliens or dinosaurs in the face and gladly risk his life for his new friend of the movie.
- Fairy Tail gives this treatment to some of its more minor early villains, most notably Erigor of Eisenwald and the Oracion Seis who were most prominent in the Nirvana Arc. In the anime-only Key of the Starry Sky arc, they reappear once more. Whereas before, Erigor was the Wake-Up Call Boss to Natsu who still got defeated at the end, he's able to beat Erza and Gray in a single blow this time around. The rest of the now-Neo Oracions Seis have also gotten a huge upgrade in power, being able to defeat Fairy Tail in their first return battle alongside Erigor. Basically at this point, Fairy Tail was still relatively fresh off from their battle against Grimoire Heart and they hadn't yet received their Second Origin Release for the Grand Magic Games. So at bare minimum, Erigor and the Neo Oracion Seis have caught up to Grimoire Heart in threat level for the anime.
- Fatal Fury The Movie does this to Terry Bogard himself. In the games Terry is of course a highly talented and strong fighter. The animated film takes him up a notch though as Terry survives massive explosions, destroys buildings with his Power Wave and even takes down the Physical God Mars, none of which Terry has done in the games. To a lesser extent Mai Shiranui gets this as well, in the games she’s The Load and even her Love Interest Andy Bogard doesn’t take her seriously. In the movie, as seen in her fight with Dark Action Girl Panni (who beat Laurence Blood) Mai is a genuinely powerful Action Girl who can keep up and fight alongside Terry, Joe and Andy.
- Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] does this to Berserker. In the original Fate/stay night, he fights like, well, a mindless berserker. In Unlimited Blade Works, he demonstrates swordsmanship skill and awareness of his surroundings, like when Saber traps his sword and attempts to decapitate him, only for him to let go of his sword and backflip out of the way.
- In the Mitsuki Oosawa manga adaptation of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, White Magician Girl Deirdre moves quite closer to the Competence Zone. Especially when she takes King Clement's castle with only back up from Raquesis and Aya, without killing anyone and relaying in trickery and magic than brute force, the expanded version of her confrontation with Manfroy in which she does get kidnapped to follow the melodramatic Downer Ending of the first generation but still attempts to fight him in self-defense and to protect little Shanan (plus she may have been captured but succeeds in protecting the castle and everyone else in it); and the rendition of her own death, where she had already guessed that Julius would go Enfante Terrible on her so she sends Julia away earlier and protects Arvis from Julius.
- Fixed Damage: In the manga, he doesn't have any trouble walking around. In the original novel, he could only hobble with a cane so slowly, a man in a wheelchair could outrace him.
- Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist. In the manga and Brotherhood, Envy is The Brute and Unskilled, but Strong, relying on either its shapeshifting to trick an enemy into submission, or if it must fight, the raw power it can put behind each blow. This usually results in Envy going Clipped-Wing Angel and getting its ass handed to it. The Envy in the Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) (which went off in a very different direction after it Overtook the Manga) is a Dance Battler and Hero Killer who serves as The Dragon and manages to kill Ed during their final confrontation (although Ed's death doesn't stick).
- Zig-Zagged by the anime version of Pride, who is the same character as the manga version of Wrath and has the overlapping power set of Combat Precognition and Implausible Fencing Powers. Anime pride has a From a Single Cell Healing Factor on top of this and hence is a lot more powerful on paper, but anime homunculi also have a Kryptonite Factor their manga equivalents don't. Manga Wrath, as a result, gets to show off a lot more before he's eventually defeated while anime Pride gets exposed to his Kryptonite and defeated shortly after his reveal.
- Hellsing being a loose adaptation and continuation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula does this to two characters from the novel.
- First is Dracula himself. Now while Count Dracula was always pretty badass being a shapeshifting Daywalking Vampire, he still was vulnerable to conventional holy weapons and in the end got killed by two Badass Normals armed with knives. In Hellsing on the other hand Dracula better known as Alucard is one of the most powerful depictions of him ever (rivalled only by the Castlevania version) being a Humanoid Abomination who can regenerate From a Single Cell, No-Sell all regular Vampire weaknesses and has thousands of souls inside him as an army. He even comes back from getting metaphysically wiped from reality. Also doubles as Historical Badass Upgrade since Dracula/Alucard is actually Vlad the Impaler.
- Second is Professor Abraham Van Helsing. In the book Helsing being an old man and Mentor Archetype was much less involved in the action compared to rest of the younger heroes, he along Mina Harker only spectated the climatic battle of the novel. In Hellsing he’s the one who defeats and stakes the aforementioned Alucard despite the latter’s insane Adaptational Badass making him the World's Strongest Man, he even founds the Hellsing Organisation which defends Britain against supernatural threats for decades, which doesn’t happen in the original book.
- Manabe of Kotoura-san beats up a bunch of cultists that hunted him for a perceived slight against Moritani in the manga. In the anime, those same cultists are Black Belt-level Martial Artists.
- The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999):
- While Impa was implied to be a skilled bodyguard in the game, her manga counterpart is a better fighter than Link himself and trains him to be better.
- The farm girl Malon helps Link fight off the Gerudo attacking Lon Lon Ranch.
- Although Mido is still a scrawny jerk, he at least tries to distract and stand up to monsters on multiple occasions.
- After initially being defeated, Dark Link reappears riding a dark horse, which he didn't do in the game.
- In Majora's Mask, the pirate captain Aveil can be scared off by bees. In the manga, she fatally wounds Mikau and fights Zora Link to a standstill.
- In the adaptation of Phantom Hourglass, despite still being turned into stone, Tetra manages to eject her spirit in the form of Princess Zelda and help fight off the Cubus Sister.
- In Twilight Princess, Ashei is reported to be a trained swordswoman but stays out of most of the action. In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), she’s fast enough to catch Link himself off guard, and later pulls a Diagonal Cut on two Darkhammers.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999):
- Lyrical Nanoha:
- Nanoha was originally conceived as the Token Mini-Moe of Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever whose only role was to be the cute and innocent little sister of main protagonist Kyouya. Even in the mini-scenario where she became a Magical Girl, she was more adorable than threatening with her heart-shaped wand with little wings. Then when The Anime of the Game came, Nanoha's wand was replaced with a Swiss-Army Weapon Wave-Motion Gun as she was re-imagined into a Little Miss Badass savior of The Multiverse who have been called a "(White) Devil" by foes and fans alike due to her ferocity and destructive powers which she does not hesitate to use on even her friends. Befriending, you know? The movie adaptations make her even more badass! In her first movie battle, she obliterate three monsters down at once with one attack. (she didn't learn Divine Buster until episode 3). Her Starlight Breaker can nuke a city now and her A.C.S. Driver can smash Reinforce through several skyscraper sized rocks!
- Subverted in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha INNOCENT. Nanoha starts off far more powerful than her main series counterpart did since she actually has swordsmanship training, but the lack of magic in that continuity means that she is weaker in the long run.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable also does this. Squishy Wizard Hayate, only capable of long-charging bombardment spells in the series proper, is an able close quarters combatant, while Stone Wall Barrier Warrior Yuuno holds his own or closely loses to several opponents who by all rights should have him beat.
- Shamal's Mirror of Travels spell gets a major boost in the Reflection/Detonation duology. While it was already fairly dangerous in canon (considering the fact she was able to neutralize Nanoha from half a mile away), it lacks significant combat application due to only being able to target a single stationary target at a time. In the movies, it has the ability to summon a massive version of her hand, which she uses at multiple points to crush Humongous Mecha.
- Speaking of the movie duology, Yuri has complete control over her powers and keeps them past the end credits. Her game counterpart had a Superpowered Evil Side and ended up suffering a Redemption Demotion.
- Mazinger Z: Boss was the Butt-Monkey and Plucky Comic Relief character in the original manga and anime series. In the Super Robot Wars games he slowly got upgraded from Joke Character to midly useful to pretty good character.
- In the 2015 Disney Manga Miriya & Marie, Marie the kitten from The Aristocats is a mentor to Miriya (a character exclusive to the manga) and very intelligent. She's capable of time traveling and teloporting by using the pink bow around her neck.
- Muhyo and Roji
- The rain dog in the Arcanum. In the manga, it's a relatively weak haunt, and Muhyo says that Fujiwara (an assistant judge) must have been incompetent if a haunt like that killed him, but insists on using his magical law to sentence it. In the anime, it achieves this by virtue of being a Composite Character with the Mad Planter, and ends up being the one that poisons Biko.
- A double case happens in the last episode of the first season. In the manga, Teeki unleashes multiple ghosts from the Arcanum, which fuse together, but Muhyo dispatches them relatively easily despite being exhausted. In the anime, the fusion of ghosts is strong enough to swallow and almost kill Muhyo and Roji, before the latter manages to activate a magical circle, enabling the former to sentence it. As a result, one line in a later arc in which Roji mentions being unable to use circles is changed to reflect the one time he did use a circle.
- In My-HiME and My-Otome, a few characters' power levels vary based on which series and media they appear in.
- Shizuru typically has the superpowers associated with the series in all versions except the My-HiME manga.
- Haruka is a Badass Normal in the My-HiME anime who can't win any fights but lives long enough after Yukino's child is killed to headbutt Shizuru and toss Yukino her armband, but is a Hime in the manga. The opposite is true in Mai-Otome; she is a powerful Otome in the anime, endowed with Super-Strength and second in her class after Shizuru, but an ordinary police officer in the manga.
- Both of Yukino's My-HiME incarnations are Himes, but play supporting roles (in the anime, she primarily uses her powers for surveillance, while in the manga, she uses hers to support Haruka). In Mai-Otome, she has no powers, and is the president of Airies in the anime(complete with a more assertive and confident personality) and a Windbloom police officer in the manga (albeit skilled enough with a sniper rifle to arguably be more effective in battle than her Hime incarnations)
- Several characters who aren't particularly badass in the Naruto manga finally get to catch a break in the anime for example:
- The most glaring one is Hinata, who got to learn a powerful technique the anime team just made up for her, defeat menacing Filler Villains on her own and actually land a hit during what was in the manga a Curb-Stomp Battle (in the process extrapolating what her Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists actually does, since in the manga she was knocked out before getting a chance to do more than activate it).
- Rock Lee is given far more love in the movies than he is in the manga, case in point Movie 3
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the 14th Angel Zeruel was the most successful out of the 16 naturally born ones, being the only one to successfully breach NERV HQ in a direct assault. However the remake Rebuild of Evangelion makes it even scarier, giving it at least 24 layers of A.T. Field, Eye Beams that one-shot a barrier which took Ramiel 10 hours to destroy, and can consume an EVA whole, and transform its body (but not its head) into a naked, human woman body to gain the traits of an EVA.
- Demitri Maxmioff in Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge despite being already super strong in the games, in the OVA he is capable of overpowering Morrigan unlike the games and other media where she’s either equal or stronger than Demitri. Then in the Final Battle Demitri does better than everybody else when he fights Pyron.
- Donavan Baine is also much more powerful than he's depicted in the games, capable of destroying Pyron with the help of Anita and riding his BFS into space like the Silver Surfer.
- Sometimes happens to characters in One Piece. While most of the heroes are super badass in the manga, the anime and movies ramp it up.
- Luffy for example, has his strength taken up many notches like in Movie 7 where he buzzsaws through an entire castle with his rubber body. In One Piece Film: Z, Luffy manages to defeat Zephyr, the man who trained the Admirals (Aolkiji, Kizaru, and Akainu) and countless other Marines, in a fist-fight during the Final Battle. In the Wano anime, Luffy puts up a better fight against Kaido, surviving his Breath Weapon and even briefly matches Kaido's “Thunder Bagua” mace attack before being overpowered. In the manga, he was one-shotted in the blink of an eye. Also later on in Udon Prison, anime Luffy is able to No-Sell getting shot with Seastone bullets using his Haki whilst in the manga Luffy still had to Dodge the Bullet.
- Zoro sometimes gets this in the anime and movies compared to the manga (where he's already super strong) but the most blatant example is Movie 5 where Zoro is made absurdly badass. The whole plot revolves him, he defeats Sanji, and then at the end Zoro is the one to defeat the Big Bad and Luffy is pretty much turned into a Decoy Protagonist as a result. Also in the anime (i.e Filler), Zoro can cut steel and iron early on (in the Warship Island arc) while in the manga it took until Zoro’s fight with Mr 1 in Alabasta for him to learn to do so. In the Wano anime, Zoro using a Haki-enhanced Mutoryu (No Sword Style) Dragon Twister is able to destroy a whole house and Kyoshiro’s Mooks with one arm and with his Killing Intent make several more goons faint in a manner similar to Conquer’s Haki which Zoro only gets later on, none of which happened in the manga. The anime version of the Onigashima raid even has Zoro explicitly knock a few mooks out with Conqueror's Haki despite not even displaying the power to do so in the manga at that point.
- Sanji also gets this in the anime and movies despite being a well-established badsss in the manga, but the Soccer featurette in particular has Sanji kick a ball around the freaking globe to get the winning goal... a feat Sanji isn't capable of in the canon. Also, in the anime of Whole Cake Island, Sanji not only fights Charlotte Daifuku and Oven simultaneously, but in the Wano anime even overwhelms X-Drake in combat, most of which was not present (or at least shown) in the manga. Sanji also happily uses Armament Haki more frequently and visibly in the Wano anime than the manga, using it to deflect bullets and easily block X-Drake’s claw attack. Later on in the anime, Sanji is even shown able to effectively fight both Kaido's Co-Dragons King and Queen in a two-on-one fight, same as Marco (Whitebeard's Number Two). This contrasts to the manga version, where Sanji explictly couldn't fight both Yonko Commanders at the same time and needed Zoro to help him out.
- Chopper, while incredibly strong in his own right, is never strong enough to get a lick at the Big Bad in the manga. In One Piece Film: Strong World, however, he's the first Straw Hat to successfully damage Shiki the Golden Lion while Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji (the Monster Trio) couldn't even touch him the whole fight.
- Small moment but in the Enies Lobby anime Usopp is shown taking out Shu the dude who rusted Zoro's Yubashiri Katana. In essence, Usopp the weak Lovable Coward literally rescued Zoro the badass in that moment. Sadly the scene does not exist in the manga.
- In the One Piece Film: Gold short special, Franky equals Luffy in a sumo match despite Luffy's strength far exceeding Franky's own in the canon. Luffy was even forced to use Gear Third on Franky, before Nami stopped both of them.
- Speaking of which, Nami herself gets a moment like this in One Piece Film: Z where she briefly holds her own◊ against Ain, a trained Ex-Marine who fights Zoro twice later in the movie. This makes Nami more of an Action Girl than a Damsel in Distress like she is more than often than not depicted as in previous movies and the manga.
- Brook gets a massive example of this in Whole Cake Island arc. In the manga, when he fights Big Mom, he is completely overwhelmed, but in the anime, Brook lasts longer against her than Gear Fourth Luffy does.
- One Piece Stampede does this to loads of characters besides the Straw Hats with: Smoker equaling Sabo in a fight, Urouge managing to briefly overpower Luffy, Buggy helping in taking down the Big Bad Douglas Bullet, and Jewelry Bonnie almost doing the same earlier with her power. Among the crew, Luffy defeats Douglas Bullet who's as strong as Rayleigh (albeit with help), Zoro cuts one of Fujitora's meteorites in half and later matches Crocodile in a fight, Sanji equals Rob Lucci in a fight (even making him use his Super Mode), Nami takes out Sentomaru and a dozen other Marines with Zeus, and even Usopp cripples Bullet's Humongous Mecha with one of his Pop Greens.
- The already unadulterated badass Kozuki Oden gets this in Episode 963. In the manga, Oden has a brief clash with Whitebeard when the latter arrives on Wano’s beach and that’s it. In the anime, he has an entire fight with Newgate and even briefly matches Whitebeard’s Earthquake punch with his Two-Sword style before being overwhelmed (and even then he recovers faster than Akainu did when he ate one in Marineford). In the manga, it’s shown that Oden was well below Whitebeard and Roger in power, while in the anime the gap is smaller.
- The villains sometimes get this compared to the manga.
- Akainu was able to bring Whitebeard down to one knee in the anime. This is counterproductive as while Akainu might be a Hero Killer, the idea in the manga was that even at his weakest Whitebeard never gave in. Though admittedly, the scene is still amazing in the anime with Whitebeard's Heroic Second Wind (remembering Ace) and Akainu's Oh, Crap! face when Whitebeard suddenly grabs him.
- Hordy Jones in the Final Battle of Fishman Island puts up a much greater fight◊ against Luffy, pulling off a Flash Step and giving Luffy more of a challenge. In the manga, Hordy only manages to bite Luffy once and is one-shotted by Luffy's Red Hawk. The Worf Effect for Hordy was intentional in the manga to show how strong Luffy and his crew had become.
- Caesar Clown, everybody's favorite Mad Scientist, is able to stalemate Luffy's Grizzly Magnum in the anime. In the manga, he gets wrecked instantly.
- Charlotte Cracker, in the manga just used his infinite biscuit-creating powers to counter and overwhelm Gear Fourth Luffy. However, in the anime, Cracker is strong enough to fight Gear Fourth Luffy with just his sword.
- In Wano, like most Gifters, Batman (no not that Batman) is a ridiculous looking, glorified Mook whose knock-off Devil Fruit power is a complete joke compared to the heroes. In the manga, he failed to touch Luffy, Zoro, and Tsuru with his bow and arrow skills. In the anime, Batman actually successfully fights Luffy, blocking the latter’s Haki-coated punch with his own Haki and forces Luffy back, which is very impressive.
- Also in the Wano anime, there’s Page One. In the manga, we really didn’t get to see much of his Spinosaurus abilities and he just got kicked around by Sanji before landing one good hit as the fight was off-paneled. In the anime, he’s a hell of a match for Sanji even with the Raid Suit, and tough enough to recover from a mighty kick that put him in a crater.
- Fujin from the Orochi Oniwabanshu is a pretty underwhelming and silly Ninja, and Zoro has no problem besting him in the manga. In the anime, Fujin is much more powerful and has Blow You Away powers (fitting given the god he’s named after) that match Zoro’s sword Razor Wind with his own, sending him flying back with a kick and even using Haki on his katanas to give Zoro an actual fight before being cut down.
- Big Mom is already ungodly strong in the manga, though she’s still pretty lumbering, what with being a mix of Mighty Glacier and The Juggernaut with movements matching her size. In the Wano anime, Big Mom is portrayed as an outright Lightning Bruiser, as seen in her extended fight with Kaido where she makes great leaps, staggers Kaido with a punch, matches his Thunder Bagua with her own Sword Beam, and even partakes in some Air Jousting with him.
- Luffy for example, has his strength taken up many notches like in Movie 7 where he buzzsaws through an entire castle
- Persona 4: The Animation gives has Izanagi. In the game, Izanagi's just a cool-looking Persona with low-tier stat growth/elemental affinities/skills that most players will have gotten rid of by the second dungeon; but in the anime he comes off as the biggest badass of the entire bunch, regularly being the go to Persona when Yu needs to wipe out a particularly dangerous Shadow. Then again, it is possible to fuse a really badass Izanagi with skills like Primal Force, Angelic Grace, and Power Charge. Much later in the game, that is.
- Similarly, Beelzebub is a good, late-game Persona, but far from the best. In the anime, Yu fuses him during the battle with Shadow Naoto, uses Megidolaon, and turns the entire dungeon into a smoking crater.
- Adachi. In the game he was kind of a pushover, however in the anime he manages to thrash Yu quite a bit, and is in control of three Reapers to kick the crap out of the rest of the protagonists (The Reaper being a fairly powerful optional Boss in the game). His manga incarnation is able to overpower Yukiko, Chie and Naoto all at once without even using his Persona, and while they gain the upper hand after evolving their Personas, he regains the advantage by summoning his own Persona.
- Persona 4: The Golden Animation takes this to ridiculous levels, with Izanagi going One-Man Army on thousands of shadows the first time it's summoned; using late game moves such as Null Physical and Maziodyne(the second most powerful multi-target electricity skill). Magatsu Izanagi is, likewise, much more powerful. Adachi uses it to defeat every persona that Yu summons (all of them really powerful, late-game personas) before it's finally stopped with a Suicide Charge by Izanagi, forcing Yu to resort to his bare hands to finish the fight. and afterwards, under Yu's control, it takes out Ameno-Sagiri with one slice.
- Persona 5: The Animation
- Game Agathion is a low-level piece of cannon fodder that falls off very quickly in strength; it's a Level 3 Persona that you make by fusing Arsene with Pixie, and you probably should be around Level 11 by the time you face Shadow Kamoshida. Anime Agathion single-handedly rips apart Shadow Kamoshida.
- Zigzagged for Arsene, as it isn't used throughout the show like Orpheus and Izanagi were, and Joker fuses it with a Pixie during his first Persona Fusion. However, the trope comes to full effect in Dark Sun when Arsene is capable of defeating Loki, Akechi's strongest Persona, with ease.
- In the game, Shadow Kaneshiro is a relatively easy boss in his first phase who only becomes a real challenge when, after being defeated, he brings out Piggytron. In the anime, he holds his own against all the Phantom Thieves before bringing out Piggytron to finish the job.
- Implied with Hifumi. Since the major twist of her Confidant- that her rise to fame was due to her mother sabotaging her opponents- was cut out, it's possible that in the anime, she became a shogi pro on her own merits.
- In the Persona 5 manga, the Phantom Thieves are shown to be able to use Showtime attacks even without Jose's Star, unlike in the game, where it was their only way of doing them.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon: The Series:
- In most of the video games, a Mewtwo is vastly superior to a Mew of the same Level in practically all areasnote ; however, in Pokémon: The First Movie, Mew is powerful enough to fight Mewtwo to a standstill.
- Mewtwo (at least the one from Mewtwo Strikes Back) is this trope in his own right, despite already being a powerful Olympus Mon in the original games. He gets upgraded from "merely" being really strong to being capable of wiping out all life on Earth outside of his island stronghold. And the heroes (with Mew's help) don't stop Mewtwo, they just persuade him that it's wrong.
- Roxie in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2: The second gym leader who isn't too hard to beat if you plan ahead. Roxie in the anime: The last Unova gym leader (well for Ash) who has Pokemon that are so strong, Ash has to use 6 Pokemon to defeat only 3 Pokemon.
- Ash's Pikachu is extremely powerful, well beyond any average Pikachu (a fact that is pointed out early in the series). It can even knock out Ground-type Pokémon, when in the games Ground-types are immune to electric attacks.
- The iconic red-and-white Poké Ball. In the games they're only really used very early into the game as they have a low catch rate. They're mostly only useful for very low-level Pokemon and even then it's not unheard of an under level 10 Pokemon to break out the Pokeball if their HP isn't down enough. In the animé, however, all the other Poké Balls (such as the Ultra Ball and Dusk Ball) are basically nonexistent and are little more than cameos most of the time. Basic Poké Balls are used to catch any Pokémon, no matter how powerful. It's extremely rare to see Pokemon not being caught in the basic model.
- The legendary birds in the games aren't said to be anything more than very rare and exceptionally powerful bird Pokémon. Pokémon 2000 makes them Physical Gods whose very existence controls the weather and are more than capable of ending it entirely. The three of them are even a match for Lugia, who's meant to quell their fighting.
- Genesect isn't a slow Pokémon in the games by any means, but the Red Genesect in Pokémon: Genesect and the Legend Awakened is able to fly at incredible speeds that only Mega Mewtwo Y can match.
- Greninja is already among the most powerful starter Pokémon (especially if it has Protean), but Ash's Greninja outright gets a Super Mode exclusive to it that makes it even more powerful. Though this form was eventually carried over to the games, downplaying this.
- In the games, while Kyurem can be powerful in its own right, it pales compared to Zekrom and Reshiram, and it needs to fuse with either of them to become the far stronger Black/White Kyurem. In Pokémon: Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice, not only is Kyurem a dangerous and feared Pokémon by itself, but it can also transform without needing to absorb either of the two dragons.
- Lillie. In her home game, she's an Actual Pacifist who hates Pokemon fighting and is only inspired to become a trainer because of how brave and strong the Player Character is. In the anime, she has a fear of Pokemon, but overcomes it and gets her first Pokemon, the Alolan Vulpix, who easily defeats Team Rocket.
- Bea gets this in Pokémon: Twilight Wings, in Pokémon Sword and Shield while she’s a Hot-Blooded trainer, she’s still ultimately a regular person who relies on their Pokémon like everyone else. In her Twilight Wings episode “Training” we see Bea is just as badass as the Machop, Machoke and Machamp she trains, as seen when she supports a big boulder on her back all while doing a one handed push-up in a display of Charles Atlas Superpower.
- Champion Leon in Pokémon Sword and Shield is touted to be The Ace who's never lost a battle in his home region, and while he certainly puts up a tough fight he's still below Cynthia in terms of difficulty. In Pokémon Journeys: The Series however, they double down on this by putting him in a league of his own even compared to other Champions. He wipes the floor with Lance and Diantha, and was the one person who could have broken Ash's win streak even after he bested Steven and Cynthia.
- Perhaps the king of this trope in the anime is Unown. In Pokémon 3, the species is depicted as a Lovecraft Lite race that can teleport people to other dimensions, allow a child to create an illusionary Entei as powerful and dangerous as the real thing, and even manipulate reality at will. In the games? It has low stats, never evolves, and only ever learns Hidden Power. The Pokédex claims "if there are two or more, an odd power is said to emerge", but this never factors into gameplay.
- Ash Ketchum himself tends to be 10x more heroic and badass in the movies than he is in the show. One of the best examples of this trope for Ash is in Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea where he saves the day, becomes literal King of the Sea and gets a Golden Super Mode to boot. And even then, he has shades of this in regards to Red, his video game counterpart, since he's willing to get physical when needed (having moments of Super-Strength) as opposed to Red who relies solely on his Pokémon, and even gets decently far in tournaments with at least one unevolved Pokémon. More recently Ash has won the Pokémon World Championships rather than just the Pokémon League like Red.
- Like Ash, Brock and Misty are far more badass in the anime than they are in the Gen 1 games where they were the two starter Gym Leaders whom a moderately-prepared Red could steamroll. In the anime they can battle Legendaries and Team Rocket like clockwork and same as Ash aren't afraid to get their hands dirty if need be, unlike the games where they let their Pokémon do all the work. Misty in particular has Super Not-Drowning Skills which weren't in the games.
- All Legendary Pokémon are this in the anime. In the games, while certainly stronger than the average Mon, a player with a decent team will be able to defeat one without too much difficulty. In the anime, they're regularly portrayed as being nigh-unstoppable, with simply being able to hold one's own against a Legendary being considered a massive feat, let alone defeating one.
- In the games, Onix is a Fake Ultimate Mook who is very vulnerable to Water and Grass type moves and only gets better by evolving into Steelix. In the anime, Onix is almost always exactly as strong and tough as a snake made out of boulders should be. This is to the point where they can actually shrug off most Water and Grass type moves!
- On that note, Psyduck. In the games, a pre-evolution with mediocre stats and no STAB on its Psychic-type moves. In the anime, if its headaches get bad enough, cue the Glowing Eyes of Doom, and it starts hitting far above its weight class with Confusion and Psychic.
- Slakoth and Slaking in the games are among the ur-examples of Awesome, but Impractical due to their high stats being heavily impeded by the Truant ability making it laze about every other turn. In the anime? Norman's are totally unaffected by this handicap when they battle Ash.
- Pokémon Adventures:
- Most of the Gym Leaders. In the games and anime, their job is to, well, job to the main characters. In this manga, they're so strong that it's generally accepted that only an extreme badass can beat them all (which, coincidentally, most of the protagonists are) note . Furthermore, being a Gym Leader also means that your side job is to protect your region from things such as, you know, various terrorist groups. So yeah, expect to see a lot more ass-whooping coming from these guys.
- In the games, Professor Oak is simply a Pokemon researcher, and in the anime, while he did some battling from time to time, his skills weren't anything to write home about. Here, he's a former champion of the Pokemon League and is capable of curb stomping Green, and later on, Gold.
- In the games, Delibird is considered to be one of the weakest Pokémon as its overall stats are rather low, it cannot evolve and it only learns Present via Level Up. The Big Bad of the Gold, Silver, and Crystal arc uses one as his main Pokémon, being so well trained it can hold its own against a Ho-Oh.
- Pokémon Origins:
- In the games, while Giovanni is the Big Bad and a powerful opponent, his Pokemon for the Gym Battle (the strongest team he fields) are either inferior or on par with Lorelei's, the weakest of the Elite Four. Here he's far stronger, on par or stronger than even Blue's final team, using two Pokemon to Red's six in the Gym Battle and his Rhyhorn alone beating five of Red's before suffering a Double KO (and could have outright won had it not suffered recoil damage from two Take Downs) and Charizard barely winning against Rhydon.
- Charizard in the games has a poor Attack stat, meaning it has to rely on its special fire attacks to do any damage. In Origins, Red's Charizard has a preference for physical attacks like Mega Punch, Mega Kick and Slash, and it's consistently able to take down powerful opponents such as Giovanni's Rhydon and Blue's Blastoise, both of which hold a type advantage over it. In addition, it's able to Mega Evolve into the then-introduced Mega Charizard X, a concept that didn't exist until long after the franchise's start.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- In Ranma ½ a number of characters put up much better fights in the anime compared to the manga:
- In his first fight with Mousse, Ranma in the manga is helpless while stuck in girl form due the difference in arms and legs lenght, and can only beat him when doctor Tofu temporarily restores his ability to return to male form. The anime however switches around the fight and Ranma learning the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken, so Ranma makes short work of him the moment Mousse moves into punching range for an instant.
- In the manga, the unnamed Dojo Destroyer is only a little stronger than Akane, who would have actually defeated him had she not injured her right hand before the fight, and Ranma can manhandle him with ease even in girl form before eventually punting him into low orbit. In the anime he's actually strong enough to fend off Ranma as a boy, and is only defeated when Ranma and Akane join forces,
- Rune Soldier Louie: Jeanie's fighting ability changes drastically between whether you're reading the manga, or watching the anime. In the manga version, Louie lays her out with one punch, when they first meet in chapter 1. Whereas in the anime, she's a much better fighter. When she and Louie fight in Episode 12, not only does she outlast him, she knocks him out (seen from 13:23-16:57).
- In RWBY: The Official Manga, a manga adaptation of RWBY, Roman is one of the most wanted criminals in the world. He's considered the most dangerous man in Vale. Yang gets excited at Ruby not because she's a Teen Genius who got into Beacon early, but because she went toe-to-toe with the Roman Torchwick. In the original show, Roman is a known criminal but he's not put on a pedestal and isn't a household name.
- Shimoneta: Despite being the manga's main antagonist, White Peak ends up being a pushover when SOX confronts him at the end of chapter 12. Ayame and Anna drop him with a single kick that knocks him unconscious. The anime changes things by giving him a full-length fight scene, in which, it takes Ayame, Anna, Tanukichi, and Oboro to finally bring him down.
- In the 2005 anime of The Snow Queen, the title character is a full Lady of War and she fights the Devil and prevails over him many times.
- The Sonic X anime did this with Shadow the Hedgehog. He's already incredibly powerful in the video game series, but not terribly so. In the anime? He's practically The Juggernaut in that very few characters are even capable of slowing him down, even Sonic himself. He also spends most of the third season as a One-Man Army against the mooks of that season's Big Bad.
- The 2020 Sorcerer Stabber Orphen anime gave a major upgrade to the abilities of the titular character, Orphen. In the 1998 anime, Orphen was a skilled sorcerer but his fighting skills could best be described as being that of a Long-Range Fighter who blasted his enemies with magic from a distance. And he did struggle in magical fights against some of his contemporaries in the Tower of Fangs like Flameheart and older, more experienced mages like McGregor who once studied in the Tower. In the 2020 anime, Orphen's magic is much faster and more versatile and his hand-to-hand abilities have gotten much better to the point where he's able to go One-Man Army and beat down multiple wizards in Childman's Bloody August hunting party. In fights against opponents who are roughly comparable to Flameheart and McGregor such as Hydrant and Uoar Curlaine, Orphen does significantly better. Even though Hydrant had a bit of an edge in magic over Orphen, Orphen didn't let that stop him in the least and proceeded to beat the shit out of Hydrant with his bare hands. And in the fight against Uoar Curlaine, the older, more experienced sorcerer didn't even get in a single hit on Orphen before Orphen topples him in one blow.
- Analyser from Space Battleship Yamato. 3-foot-tall Lovable Sex Maniac in the anime, over 20-foot-tall Humongous Mecha in the 2010 movie.
- Street Fighter:
- Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
- E.Honda. While pretty strong in the games is still not a particularly powerful or serious fighter compared the rest of the cast and is more interested in running a bathhouse. In the animated film, he’s a wandering Spirited Competitor strong enough to defeat both Dhalsim and Balrog.
- Ken is very strong in the games but still gets Overshadowed by Awesome courtesy of his buddy Ryu. In the animated movie Ken proves to be a formidable threat when Brainwashed and Crazy and once he regains his senses, he’s the only other fighter who can fight Big Bad Bison alongside Ryu, with their combined Hadouken taking him down in the finale.
- Street Fighter II V:
- Guile gets this, in the games he’s a powerful fighter but he still falls behind the stronger fighters such the Ansatsuken practitioners Ryu and Ken. In the anime Guile curb stomps both Ryu and Ken teaching them there’s Always Someone Better and directly inspires them to travel to the world and get stronger.
- Doarai, Chun-Li’s father’s only contribution to the story in the games is getting killed by Bison and being a source of grief for Chun-Li. In the anime he’s Spared by the Adaptation and proves to be a strong fighter (as seen when a few Muay Thai assassins try and kill him), he’s also an ace By-the-Book Cop.
- The Hadouken, in the games it’s a powerful but standard attack strength of which is limited only by how much energy its user can put into it. In the anime it’s explicitly Life Energy and Old Master Yo Senkai uses the Hadouken to invigorate himself and Ryu uses it as the ultimate attack to defeat Bison in the end.
- Akuma in Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation. Already a dreaded fighter in the games, in the anime Akuma is not only made to be twice the size of Ryu but he’s also a Walking Wasteland with his dark aura being able to effect the environment around him.
- In the same movie the Hadouken gets this treatment again, as one fired by Evil Ryu can destroy an entire building something that’s never happened in the games.
- Ryu in Street Fighter Alpha: Generations is able to summon the Cavalry of the Dead to fight with him, a power he most certainly doesn’t possess in the games.
- In Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind gives this treatment to Dark Action Girls C.Viper and Juri. In the games they’re both strong, but due to the nature of the series they are still regularly bested by other members of the cast, with even Dumb Muscle Abigail from SFV beating Juri in his canon story mode. In The Ties That Bind both C.Viper and Juri are near unstoppable with Juri delivering The Worf Effect to Cammy, Chun-Li and Guile, and C.Viper doing the same to Cammy and even surviving an onslaught from Evil Ryu. Given both characters were new at the time, it was likely just a case of Character Shilling from Capcom to get them over to fans.
- Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
- Tekken: Bloodline:
- King gets this, having a lot more play as a nigh unstoppable competitor during the events of Bloodline than in the games. Attacks barely seem to faze him, and he's treated outright as The Dreaded by majority of the competitors for his silent attitude and intimidating look. He even manages to defeat Paul, who canonically went undefeated during the events of Tekken 3 which Bloodline is an adaptation of. King ends up being the opponent Jin faces at the tournament final, and forces a very close fight which Jin wins by the skin of his teeth, just going to show further how undeniably tough King is.
- Xiaoyu gets this, in the games her status as a Action Girl isn’t really taken all that seriously and she’s mainly there to be a Morality Pet to Jin as well as Plucky Comic Relief. Here however her skills are noted and praised by Heihachi himself and Xiaoyu even manages to kick Nina’s ass and fight True Ogre alongside Jin, Hwoarang and Paul.
- The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa): The game version of the pirate captain Aveil can be scared off by bees. Here, she fatally wounds Mike and fights Zora Link to a standstill.
- Variable Geo: In the Advanced V.G. fighting game series, Satomi's role is minor and her fighting ability is secondary to Yuka, Reimi, and Tamao. The OVA adaptation elevates Satomi to being the deuteragonist and her spirit energy is said to surpass all others, including Yuka's. She's also given an ultimate attack that's near-identical to Kyo Kusanagi's "121 Shiki Ama no Murakumo" HDM.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, Kisara fights Akunadin with the Blue Eyes White Dragon and dies protecting Seto. In the manga, she just gets attacked and dies.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga, Manjoume — the Butt-Monkey and heavily subjected to The Worf Effect — becomes a certified Stoic badass, beating Invincible Hero Judai in a tournament. Sure, he gets curbstomped by Kaiser Ryo in his next duel, but he certainly gets much more respect than his anime counterpart.
