While Vegito was already a Story-Breaker Power in the Dragon Ball manga, the Dragon Ball Z anime made him even more so. In the manga, he immediately turns Super Saiyan when fighting Majin Buu, and flattens him. In the anime, he spends an episode fighting Buu without turning Super Saiyan, which as one-sided as the fight after he transforms, he still dominates the fight to the point it's clear he didn't actually need to transform to overpower Buu, he just did to humiliate him.
The Gogeta from Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie gets this. In the original manga when Goku suggested he fuse with Vegeta to beat Buu, Old Kai shoots it down citing the aforementioned Potara Fusion as much more efficient. But in the aforementioned movie Gogeta is formed when Goku and Vegeta is now individually much stronger than Vegito was in the original manga/anime and thus Gogeta is now more powerful in canon than his Potara Fusion counterpart as well.
Speaking of Broly while he has always been The Berserker since his original movie where he was undeniably super powerful, he did suffer a lot of Villain Decay in other Dragon Ball media afterwards and was killed in his second appearance by a Combined Energy Attack from Gohan, Goten and ghost Goku. Dragon Ball Super: Broly amps him up to the point where he can overpower either Vegeta or Goku in their Super Saiyan God transformations without even turning into just the basic Super Saiyan transformation and though he ended up losing to Goku in his Super Saiyan Blue form, when Broly transforms into his Super Saiyan not even a Combined Energy Attack from Goku and Vegeta in their Super Saiyan Blue form can stop him this time. This forces Goku and Vegeta to fuse into the aforementioned Gogeta to turn the tide of the battle.
A downplayed example, but Frieza put up a much better fight with Super Saiyan Goku in the anime compared to the manga. In the manga, although Frieza did decently, it was clear from the outset that he never had a chance of winning and that was before his power started to fail him. In the anime, Frieza got several good hits in and gave Goku the fight of his life (although he still had no real chance of winning) before his stamina gave and was reduced to a non-threat by the end of the battle.
Frieza's return as Mecha Frieza. In the manga Trunks takes Frieza out while he was distracted, not giving him the chance to power-up. It was hinted that Trunks was only as strong as Super Saiyan Goku on Namek. In the anime, Trunks took Frieza apart even when he dropped a Death Ball on Trunks' head, trying to destroy the planet.
Gohan's Bad Future counterpart gets this treatment as well. In the manga story of Trunks' timeline, Gohan is killed by Android 17, who claimed to have not even used half of his full power to do so. In the anime adaptation of Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks, Gohan is actually stronger than both 17 and 18 individually, only losing because the two ganged up on him.
Adult Gohan from the present timeline is robbed of his hero status in the manga thanks to lack of training and Akira Toriyama changing The Hero role back to Goku before the end. But Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn on the other hand gives Gohan back some cred as he goes One-Man Army on the entire resurrected Rogues Gallery then explodes Frieza (Final Form) with one punch. To make it better the whole time Gohan actually makes the Great Saiyaman poses and goofy attitude actually cool (even JoJo-esque) for once in the movie. Like Piccolo, he gets focus over Goku and Vegeta in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and is shown to be no pushover. Then he attains his Gohan Beast form (which he uses to humiliate the Big Bad of the film Cell Max), which surpasses Goku and Vegeta's highest forms by the point he obtains it, alongside Orange Piccolo.
Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu got the chance to defeat the Ginyu Force in two filler episodes, Yamcha defeating Recoome, the one who just beat the crap out of Vegeta, Gohan and Krillin not long before. In another filler scene, Yamcha defeated Ulibu, a character who is probably stronger than Freeza. That's right, the Memetic Loser defeated a guy who is stronger than Freeza.
Can't forget the bit in the anime where Krillin holds his own and successfully damages goddamn imperfect Cell who at this point is strong as base Goku at least, none of which was remotely capable for manga Krillin to do. The scene still stands as one of Krillin's biggest Big Damn Heroes-moments and actually enjoyable Filler.
In a similar vein to Krillin, Tien gets a good showing in Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound being able to knock around Future Trunks to extent that Trunks has to go Super Saiyan to actually win the fight which in of itself is a complement to Tien's fighting ability. In the manga Tien gets one cool moment holding back Semi Perfect Cell then is Put on a Bus for years.
In the anime during Gohan and Cell’s Kamehameha Beam-O-War, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien and Yamcha all help Gohan out by shooting Cell in the back with Ki blasts. While it doesn’t break Cell’s hold, it does bother him enough that he has to divert his attention away from Gohan to knock the Z-Fighters down with his aura, but they all get back up and keep at it. In manga only Vegeta aided Gohan, while the rest of Z-Fighters just spectated.
Chi-Chi. In the manga she only fought once as a teenager during the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament and before then only defended herself accidentally (as a girl she’d cry while her helmet shot a energy beam) and for the rest of the manga she gets Chickification being little more than a Education Mama and Wet Blanket Wife. In the anime and movies while Chi-Chi still has these traits, her superhuman martial arts prowess is made much more apparent as seen in Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug where she aids Gohan in battle against Lord’s Slugs soldiers, running through a explosion and taking down two foes with one flying kick and in the Garlic Junior Saga while possessed Chi-Chi proves to be extremely strong and dangerous. In the Buu Saga we see Chi-Chi train Goten and take a kick from him while he’s a Super Saiyan and there’s a Flash Back to original Dragon Ball where she has a romantic fight with Goku when they were children and is actually shown equaling him.
Mr. Satan, the iconic Fake Ultimate Hero, is generally portrayed as a near-complete Miles Gloriosus in the manga—pretty much the only fight he gets involved in where he isn't a joke is his brief bout with the gunman Van Zant, where he punches the guy for a few panels but doesn't knock him out. In the anime, there are a number of scenes added that suggests he's more of an Overshadowed by AwesomeBadass Normal, including a flashback Curb-Stomp Battle against Spopovitch where he displays the ability to Flash Step and doesn't take a single hit.
In Dragon Ball Heroes Mr. Satan’s Alternate Self instead of being a faker who is a complete weakling compared to the main cast, is the strongest warrior in the universe more powerful than Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta (both of whom can go Super Saiyan 4). He’s also next in line to be God of Destruction.
In the manga, Dabura's skills and abilities are extremely lacking in comparison to his anime counterpart. He mostly uses sneak attacks and in fact he never once throws a single physical punch in the entire manga. He's unable to overpower a rusty SSJ Gohan and is quickly dealt with by Buu before he can even throw a single attack. The anime, however, amps him up, allowing him to hold his own against Gohan and even standing up to Buu for quite some time.
While Goku is typically never a weakling in any media, The Path to Power amps him up even more especially for how it deals with Kid Goku. Case in point: in the original manga and anime, his first attempt at the Kamehameha Wave only results in a small energy beam that's only strong enough to destroy Bulma's car, while in The Path to Power, said first attempt results in a Wave-Motion Gun that completely obliterates a good chunk of the Red Ribbon Army's armada.
Android 8 is quite powerful in the series proper (stronger than Goku at the point they met), but his strength is greater in the movie The Path to Power. He is able to fly, dash, and nearly kills Goku, who is also made stronger. He also fights a mecha that knocked Goku unconscious for several minutes and pushes it back.
Also from that movie there's Yamcha, who at the point in the early manga only got one over Goku thanks to Goku being starved at the time. The Path to Power on the other hand not only makes Yamcha ridiculously badass but turns his fight with Kid Goku into a outright Curb-Stomp Battle thanks to Wolf Fang Fist, which blows Goku a mile away. Something that did not happen in the original version.
The Super Saiyan God form gets this treatment in Dragon Ball Super. In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Super Saiyan God was the definition of Awesome, but Impractical: it gave Goku the power to battle Beerus on more or less equal grounds, but it only lasted for a few minutes — short enough that Goku lost the transformation in the middle of the fight, and actually performed better fighting as a normal Super Saiyan, since he absorbed the power of godhood. Here, while the end result is pretty much the same, Super Saiyan God lasts much longer and overall has a better showing, including slowly destroying the universe just by fighting Beerus. Much later on, it's also revealed Goku can transform into the form at will, making for a weaker and slower but less stamina-consuming alternative for Super Saiyan Blue. However, the form never really pushes Beerus anywhere close to his full power, wheras in the movie, by comparison, Beerus used almost 70% of his power.
Beerus: Generally speaking, the gap between Beerus, Whis, and the rest of the cast is made to be much wider than it was in the original movie.
Frieza himself also gets this treatment in Dragon Ball Super. In the original Resurrection 'F', Final Form Frieza is completely dominated by Base Goku and, as Golden Frieza, he runs out of energy too fast to really give the impression he could have beaten Goku. In Super, Final Form Frieza matches Base Goku in terms of speed and power, and Golden Frieza beats SSGSS Goku around like a ragdoll, with Goku nearly losing consciousness as a result.
Botamo in both the manga and anime versions of Super is such a Stone Wall that not even Goku can harm him. However, in the manga, Goku's attacks could send him flying, while in the anime, Goku's attacks couldn't even budge him.
This trope is invoked for Yamcha in the Dragon Ball side manga, Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha!. As the title suggests, the main character is an ordinary teenager who dies and gets reincarnated as Yamcha. Being well aware of what happens to Yamcha, he decides to train hard and change that. And he succeeds. By the time the Saiyans arrive, his power level is over 10,000, letting him easily wipe out all the Saibamen singlehanded and defeat Nappa on his own. Even though he's not quite as strong as Vegeta, he's still powerful enough to team up with Goku to defeat him.
While the Dragon Ball Super Manga does give Adaptational Wimp to several characters (e.g Hit and Goku Black), it does give Adaptational Badass to other characters, especially during the Tournament of Power and later arcs after the anime ended.
Firstly there's Master Roshi, whom in the anime did well for his age and took out many opponents but still tired himself out fighting and was told to retire by Vegeta, which Roshi agreed to and eliminated himself before he died of exhaustion. In the manga telling, Roshi lasts for much longer, being one of the final fighters participating and even fights freaking Jiren using his own incomplete form of Ultra Instinct to dodge Jiren's strikes before being eliminated. The second is Gohan, who did well in the anime but didn't make it to the finals, instead performing a Heroic Sacrifice trapping Dyspo so that Freiza could eliminate both of them. In the manga, Gohan makes it to the finals and soundly equals the fused Kefla (whom Goku needed Ultra Instinct to beat), resulting in both him and Kefla getting a double elimination.
The Galactic Patrol arc does this to the characters whom didn't get to shine at the end of the anime. First, there's Majin Buu who in the anime didn't get to fight in either the Universe 6 Saga or Tournament of Power, has a Big Damn Heroes moment saving the powerless Goku and Vegeta from new villain Moro by kicking the latter's ass and forcing him to retreat. And there's Yamcha who in the anime wasn't even invited to partake in the Tournament of Power due to being too weak, fights and defeats three escaped alien prisoners whom Moro had powered up with Goku and Vegeta's Ki.
Vegeta gets this in the Granolah the Survivor Saga. By the time the anime had wrapped up, Vegeta had once again fallen behind Goku and gotten outlasted in the Tournament of Power by both Frieza and Android 17. In the Survivor Saga, Vegeta gets his own “Ultra” form Ultra-Ego which actually absorbs damage to boost Vegeta’s strength tenfold putting him roughly at the same level as Goku’s upper limit as he’s able to overpower Granolah whom had wished to be the World's Strongest Man.
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