Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Adaptational Wimp / Anime & Manga

Go To

Adaptational Wimp in Anime & Manga.

  • The anime adaptation of Akame ga Kill! does this to multiple characters, mostly due to the changes when the anime split off from the manga and ultimately went with a Gecko Ending. For specifics:
    • Najenda was originally a badass Action Girl who bravely guided Night Raid in multiple missions and risked her life assuring they were safe. In the anime, she almost never gets physically involved in most of Night Raid's fights, and whenever she does she goes down pretty easily or requires saving. Otherwise, throughout the series she mostly sits at her base providing orders for her followers and doesn't even help them in fights against named villains.
    • Esdeath is a downplayed case as while she's still the World's Strongest Man in both continuities, the anime version is clearly weaker to her original manga counterpart by the end. Since the manga had many arcs that were Adapted Out in the anime and events occurred over much larger periods, Esdeath in the manga had more time to develop new abilities, such as Ice Cavalry and her Ice Commander In Chief. Here is a good comparison: in the anime Akame was capable of killing Esdeath all by herself after unlocking her Super Mode; while in the manga Akame, alongside other 10 Teigu users and 100,000 men had a hard time landing a single hit on her. Eventually Akame manages to impale her with her Super Mode, but only because Esdeath grew tired of fighting an entire army and was too focused on the fact that she had already shattered Murasame.
    • Poor Wave had most of his awesome moments cut out and his participation in the story was greatly reduced. Because Bolic's assassination was adapted during Seryu and Mine battle, he did not fight with Akame, Lubbock and Mine (fight when he reveals how powerful his Teigu is) and because Wild Hunt didn't appeared in the anime, he never fights Syura (moment that consolidates his relationship with Kurome). Except a brief fight with Susanoo and helping Tatsumi to defeat the Ultimate Teigu, his role in the anime is minimal. Most damningly, he never obtained Run's Teigu and wielded it together with Grand Chariot thanks to Run surviving in the anime, and he fails to save Kurome from dying against Akame.
    • Even Tatsumi himself got hit hard with his since he never undergoes his Fusion Dance with Incursio, which greatly increases his power despite slowly taking him over. This culminates in the the differences in the endings where in the anime, despite getting a Golden Super Mode final power-up and an assist from Wave, he dies defeating the Ultimate Teigu. Compare that to the manga where he manages to defeat it, even with some extra help from a powered-up Wave, and survives, albeit at the cost of his human form.
  • Guts in Berserk (2016) has a big moment of this early on, due to the Lost Children arc being Adapted Out. The arc's conclusion (which had Guts engaging an extremely powerful Apostle, getting stabbed multiple times, enduring a forest fire, and falling several stories) led immediately into his encountering of the Holy Iron Chain Knights, who managed to subdue him with some effort. Due to the anime cutting all this out and replacing it with a much less lethal battle with a gang of skeletons and a possessed tree, we're left with a Guts who has sustained only two fairly minor injuries by his standards in a pretty short fight, but still gets exhausted after a brief scuffle with a bunch of incompetent knights and Azan, gets knocked off-balance by a simple piece of wood thrown by Serpico, and is incapacitated by a minor injury from Farnese (in the manga, these moments were pretty clearly more like straws on the camel's back).
  • Sylia Stingray in Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 was in more of a Mission Control role for the Knight Sabers and rarely went into the field herself, whereas her OVA counterpart personally led the Knight Sabers into battle herself.
  • Buso Renkin: While she is just as badass in the first half of the series, Tokiko Tsumura, the Action Girlfriend of Stock Shōnen Hero Kazuki, had most of her fight scenes in the second half of the anime cut out because the animators removed most of the many scenes from the main character's side of the arc so that they could play up the threat posed by the Big Bad. Adding that to the fact that in both versions of the story she spent half the first arc being sidelined due to injuries, and she comes across as far less impressive a fighter than she was in the original manga.
  • Ganta Igarashi in Deadman Wonderland. In the manga, whilst not strong in the beginning of the manga, he was a pretty clear Determinator, who wouldn't back down from a fight. The only exception to this rule is his first fight with Kiyomasa Senji, where he quickly realizes he's out of his element. In the anime, however, his behavior in the first few chapters is ramped up to the point of Flanderization, where he is gets beat up and shoved around in every single episode. This is most prevalent in Episode 2, where he is willing to quit the Dog Race despite the fact that he would die the next day if he did, a pretty major plot point of the episode.
  • Jasmine in Deltora Quest. In the books Jasmine was a stoic Jungle Princess Action Girl who took nobody's crap. In the anime Jasmine is girlish, nagging, and foolhardy and is Captain Obvious in the dub. It's especially evident in The City of Rats; in the book Jasmine saves Lief from getting eaten by the giant snake Reeah by slitting the snake’s throat with Lief's sword. In the anime Jasmine barely even scratches him with her knife and Lief is one who kills Reeah by destroying his crown.
  • Jou Kido in the original Japanese Digimon Adventure was the voice of reason for the group. As the oldest child, he felt responsible for the wellbeing of the others, resulting in him being very cautious around strange situations. In the American dub, he is turned into a Stereotypical Nerd comic relief character who is allergic to everything. His cautiousness is also played more as cowardice.
  • Doraemon: The Record of Nobita's Parallel Visit to the West have the gang entering the world of Journey to the West, like the title states, with one of the demons they encounter being the Red Boy. Unlike the novel's counterpart, in which the Red Boy is one of Sun Wukong's most cunning and deadly adversaries with the ability to breathe Samadhi Fire impossible to extinguish, his anime counterpart lacks the novel character's fighting skills, flight or superpowers, and barely puts up a fight in the final battle.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Dragon Ball being originally based off Journey to the West actually provides some examples in relation to the novel with multiple characters from the epic having significantly weaker expies in Toriyama’s version. Goku initially was an example being far weaker than Sun Wukong, however he managed to spectacularly avert this later becoming a Physical God who can shake the heavens and fight cosmic beings exactly like his inspiration, albeit still without Monkey’s magic or shapeshifting abilities. Other characters however were less fortunate when it came to their expies.
      • Zhu Bajie aka Piggy in the book while weak compared to Sun Wukong was still a goddamn deity thus had extreme strength, being more than capable of kicking ass and defeating monsters to defend Tripitaka. Zhu Bajie‘s expy Oolong however is very much a Boisterous Weakling and while he does have shapeshifting powers like his originator it’s only used to scare or fool people, having zero strength to back it up and worse still Oolong can only transform for five minutes. Worth noting in an earlier draft Oolong was actually closer to Zhu Bajie and even wielded the latter’s powerful spike rake but this was changed in the third and final draft with Oolong becoming the smart-mouthed spectator to the action we know today.
      • Chi-Chi is based off Princess Iron Fan whom in the novel was a demoness or according to other legends an outright goddess who had divine strength and wind powers whom was close in power to even Sun Wukong (who resorted to trickery to defeat her). Dragon Ball's Chi-Chi however while confirmed to be the strongest purely human woman on Earth and capable of killing ki empowered aliens is still many leagues below in power to any god or god-like being in the series (such as her husband and sons), unlike her divine counterpart Princess Iron Fan. As a nod to her inspiration though Chi-Chi is given the wind summoning Bansho Fan in Super Dragon Ball Z and Budokai Tenkaichi 3.
      • Bull Demon King aka Ox-King has a much weaker expy in Dragon Ball as in the novel he’s one of the very few antagonists to actually give Sun Wukong any trouble at all and is able to put both him and Zhu Bajie on the ropes before some Divine Intervention in the form of Nezha bails the heroes out. His Dragon Ball counterpart, despite being very intimidating in his introduction and having trained with Master Roshi, is greatly Overshadowed by Awesome being no match for Wukong’s expy Goku (who ironically becomes his son-in-law) and even his own daughter becomes stronger than him.
    • Krillin in general. While he normally is a good fighter, in the non-canon movies his role is only as Plucky Comic Relief and his Butt-Monkey status is much more frequent. He's subject to all sorts of mishaps. Misfortunes that have fallen on him include being peed on by Gohan and having rubble from Garlic Jr.'s castle fall on him (movie 1), nearly getting his face fried by a ki blast and getting whacked in the head repeatedly with a shopping bag by Chi-Chi (movie 7), getting thrown into some rubble by Broly and forgotten by the rest of the Z Warriors (movie 10) and a Running Gag in several of the films where a villain punches him square in the face, which leads him thinking, "why does this always happen to me?!"
    • The Dragon Ball Super adaptation of Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' has many:
      • Jaco joined the Z Fighters in defending Earth from Frieza's minions and was able to take out several despite lacking the ability to fly and use Ki attacks. When Super retold this event, Jaco instead became a Small Name, Big Ego, constantly bragging about how awesome he was and then cowering behind Bulma when Frieza's forces came.
      • In both Resurrection F and Super, Gohan became a lot weaker than he used to be from not training, but in Super, he can only stay Super Saiyan for a few minutes before his energy runs out.
      • In Resurrection F, Krillin had no problem fighting Frieza's soldiers and took them down as easily as the rest of Earth's fighters, but in Super's retelling of the story he spends most of the battle too scared to fight and the others go out of their way to protect him. It isn't until Piccolo points out that he's actually more powerful than they are that he begins to fight back.
    • In the anime, Goku Black is a terrifyingly competent No-Nonsense Nemesis whose Super Saiyan Rose (Which is basically Super Saiyan Blue but with Zamasu's Ki) transformation and Saiyan Power allows him to become exponentially more powerful to the point that he managed to overwhelm the combined might of Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks. As a result, he remains as one of the only villains to remain completely undefeated by the time he fuses. Manga Black? He only got as high as Super Saiyan 2, gets his ass kicked by Blue Vegeta note  and rather than make a comeback out of this, gets unambiguously defeated to the point that Future Zamasu is forced to heal him. He also succumbs to Bond Villain Stupidity as rather than murder Trunks at the first opportunity that he would have done in the manga, chose to repeatedly spare him just because he wants to become stronger from fighting him. In fact, the reason why both Black and Zamasu decide to fuse in this medium is out of a genuine last resort due to both Vegeta and Goku overwhelming them both rather than because they don't want to play around anymore.
    • Hit in the manga. In the anime, he wrecks full-power SSB Vegeta with help from his time-skip technique and one-shots SSB Kaio-Ken Goku with one of his killing techniques in an anime-only Filler Arc. In the manga, his time-skip is nowhere near as impressive as it was in the anime, due to being unable to improve and only working against opponents at his level (or lower). It was even outright stated by Goku and Whis that his victory against Vegeta was a fluke and that Vegeta could have easily won had he not grasped the Idiot Ball (he used up 90% of his energy earlier to show off). When he Turns Red and jacks up his power, Hit is seemingly as strong as he was in the anime (being able to match SSB Goku), but this still counts as an example because what he could do in the anime all the time was turned into something that required an extensive charging sequence and toll on his body in the manga (he even said he couldn't maintain that level for more than a minute).
      • Then comes the Tournament of Power. On one hand, even in the manga he now seems to be on par with a stronger CSSB Goku without needing to power up, as Goku sweats and notes he got much stronger while watching him attack Jiren. In both versions, he's treated as a big deal and is the one who gives the most trouble to Jiren prior to Goku's Ultra Instinct. On the other hand, in the manga Jiren identified him as the biggest threat and eliminated him in the first five minutes while in the anime Hit got to show off more, get some eliminations, and last to the second half of the tournament.
    • In general a lot of characters are weaker in the Dragon Ball Super manga compared to the anime, e.g Vegeta in the Universe 6 saga. In his fight against Magetta in anime once Vegeta becomes Super Saiyan he's able to knock Magetta around like a beachball, in the manga Vegeta can't budge Magetta because he weighs over 1,000 tons. For reference, even in base form Vegeta was able to break apart mountains in DBZ, so by all rights none of the Z-Fighters should be struggling with a measly 1,000 tons at this point in the series especially when in Super Mode.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • In the manga and its Brotherhood anime adaptation, Selim Bradley is revealed to be Pride, the strongest of the homunculi. In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), which was made before this was revealed, the character remains exactly what they look like. The role of Pride is instead taken by his father, who was a different homunculus (Wrath) in the manga.
    • In the manga and Brotherhood, Anti-Villain Scar was a Warrior Monk from Ishval's priestly caste capable of massacring entire squads with just his bare hands, while the 2003 anime version (made before the manga revealed most of his backstory) was just an ordinary partisan during the Ishbalan War. As such, though both versions of Scar end up gaining an alchemical right arm capable of killing anything with just one touch, the 2003 one is a lot less scary if he cannot get the jump on someone first. In addition, Manga!Scar is eventually able to create as well as destroy, whereas 2003!Scar can only do the latter.
    • All homunculi in the 2003 anime version have a Kryptonite Factor that their manga counterparts do not possess: if they're exposed to the remains of the human corpse they were created from, they will be paralyzed and unable to defend themselves.
  • In Getter Robo, the Shin Getter Robo is generally treated as an absolute terror, light-years advanced above every other Getter Machine before it and a textbook Mechanical Abomination so powerful that its existence was treated as a threat to humanity. In the OVA series Shin Getter Robo Armageddon, it's still treated as a cut above all its predecessors, but not to the point of being overwhelmingly superior. The Invader Getter-G and an upgraded Getter-1 are able to contest it, and it often has trouble with Monster of the Week-level threats, even accounting for its crew being less experienced, with the role of the unstoppable continually-evolving abomination going to the Shin Dragon. This was likely to avoid Story-Breaker Power issues, as it spends most of the series acting as the protagonist mech. (On the plus side, it's actually possible to pilot the thing without going insane or destroying the planet.)
  • GTO: The Early Years: In the manga, Nanno is one of the few fighters the Onibaku can't physically win against at all. In the 2020 live-action, the two of them easily suplex him and knock him out.
  • Gundam:
  • Hunter × Hunter: Downplayed compared to most of the cases but it's noticeable in the 2011 anime. In the manga, Leorio was the only one able to open 2nd door of the Testing Gate but he needed the help of Gon and Kurapika to open one door in this adaptation. He was also the one who beat the mafioso in the arm wrestling contest but they didn't even compete in the remake.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The OVA adaptation of Stardust Crusaders had this for Jotaro Kujo and Dio Brando at separate occasions. Jotaro defeated Forever the orangutan with ease in the manga, wherein the OVA, he's nearly crushed to death inside a steel container and had to be saved. During the final battle, Dio quickly back-sided a sneak attack from Polnareff instantly, the OVA instead had the attack managing to momentarily stun him.
  • In the Kimba the White Lion 2009 TV Special, the title character went from being a poster boy of the Killer Rabbit trope to a total coward whose hunting is so bad that even his prey laughs at him.
  • Kirby: Right Back at Ya!:
    • In the Kirby games, King Dedede could hold his own against Kirby, and came close to winning against powerful adversaries, most notably Nightmare in Kirby's Adventure. In the anime he relies on the Monster of the Week to take care of Kirby, and while in the games Dedede would fight Kirby himself after they failed, in the anime he just gives up after the episode's monster is defeated. His flying and swallowing powers are gone, and he only really uses his hammer to hit Escargoon for comic relief. If the Monster of the Week disobeys Dedede and attacks him, Dedede would probably just run away and cry for help.
    • While Kirby is usually more powerful with a copy ability (except for a joke ability like Sleep), it is still possible to clear some stages and bosses in the games without using a copy ability. In the anime, Kirby is pretty much a punching bag until he gets a copy ability. Also, in the games, Kirby is fully capable of defeating whatever bad guys pop up with little prompting. In the anime, Fumu/Tiff has to tell him to inhale an enemy before he can actually fight. Although this could be all justified as (in this adaptation) Kirby is only a baby and therefore can not hold a fight with enemies without the providence of encouragement.
    • Most of Meta Knight's powers — his tornadoes, his ability to fly, use of electricity and fire — are removed from this version, and most battle's he's in will either have him undergo The Worf Effect, or leaving Kirby to do the work so he can get stronger.
  • Lady!!:
    • In the manga, Lynn slapped Mary for shit-talking her father. Contrast this to the anime where this never happens, and Lynn is often reduced to tears due to Mary's bullying, blind to her malicious behaviour and easily gives in to her blackmail.
    • In the manga, Lynn was prone to attacking Thomas at least once a chapter for being a jerkass, but in the anime she's more passive in the face of his bullying. Very rarely does she fight back, and Thomas spends most of the series getting away with his bad behaviour.
    • In the manga, Arthur gave Mary a Bitch Slap (notice a pattern?) for disrespecting Sarah (who he's in love with). In the anime, the most he does against her is tell her mother about her bullying, who proceeds to take her side because she refuses to believe Mary can do anything wrong.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Link from The Legend of Zelda is known for being a courageous Kid Hero who encounters multiple dangers in his quest to save Zelda. Link in the first The Legend Of Zelda manga does end up saving the day, but he comes off as utterly cowardly compared to both his game version and future Link adaptations. He cries and whimpers when he encounters enemies.
    • The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
      • Zelda gets hit with this in the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999). In the games, she is Sheik. In the manga Sheik is a separate persona from Zelda. Zelda's mind was shut away for seven years when she insisted that Impa brainwash her. As a result, most of Zelda's accomplishments and helpfulness doesn't occur in her manga incarnation.
      • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2005) does this with Trinexx. In the original game, Trinexx was a powerful hydra that required the Master Sword and two Magic Rods to defeat. Here, Link is able to take it down with a single, well-placed slash. He learns to his horror that Trinexx was actually a transformed Ghanti.
      • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), Link's (pre-Master Sword) Charles Atlas Superpower of the video game is scaled down to impressive but believable feats for an athletic teenager, and all that Goron wrestling at Eldin is only accomplished by copious covert assistance on Midna's part. And even with the shiny Infinity +1 Sword that lets him bisect dragons, Link is forced to learn the hard way that he isn't a One-Man Army so much as a One Man Infantry Batallion who still needs to coordinate with The Cavalry to get things done.
  • In contrast to their usual portrayals, the Greek gods in Little Pollon are anything but infallible and all powerful and have many human weaknesses.
  • Maken-ki!: In the manga, Himegami is a demigoddess capable of casting high-level spells and summons. She's also central to its main narrative, because Kamigari needs her Orochi blood to release the Ama no Iwato seal. But you'll never know it by watching the anime version, which omits her character arc entirely in favor of reducing her to simply being a member of Takeru's harem.
  • Marvel Anime: X-Men:
    • Storm goes from her comic book version who's powerful enough to potentially create cataclysmic weather events across the globe to being unable to conjure up more than a single lightning bolt that leaves her too tired to fight for hours.
    • Wolverine is still listed as having his Super-Senses in the opening credits, but in the show itself he never shows it.
  • In a manga adaptation of Mega Man Zero, Zero (a powerful robot who hunted rogue machines) is turned into a wimp who tends to be scared by everything.
  • Felicia in the anime adaptation Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge goes from the world's greatest Action Girl into a Damsel in Distress who needs rescuing four times in the miniseries from characters she would ordinarily defeat effortlessly. The most embarrassing rescue would have to be when she's saved by a regular, elderly human man with zero combat experience whatsoever. To be fair to Felicia even Morrigan the poster girl for Darkstalkers also gets this in the OVA. In the games Morrigan is a S class succubus, who has the potential to be the strongest character in the series if not for her Soul Jar. In the OVA however Morrigan is overpowered by Demitri (who she's more or less equal to in the games) in their initial bout and worse still she gets defeated and badly wounded by some random demons towards the end. It's telling that Morrigan along with Felicia are the only female characters who don't fight Big Bad Pyron in the Final Battle, as Morrigan instead falls for Demitri and joins him.
  • Happen a few times in One Piece e.g Whitebeard in the anime was brought down to one knee, in the manga, he never fell once. But the most glaring example is Nico Robin as in the non-canon movies where despite her incredibly handy Devil Fruit power she's frequently hit with The Worf Effect. In One Piece Film: Strong World she gets weakened by a butterfly and captured by a Killer Gorilla, in One Piece Film: Z Robin can't use her Devil Fruit on Binz since he moves faster than her eyes can track (in the manga nobody has been able to dodge Robin's power) and in One Piece Film: Gold she gets held at gunpoint in Final Battle and rendered useless.
    • "Golden Lion" Shiki from One Piece Film: Strong World is an interesting example. He was specifically created to be the antagonist for the non-canon movie Strong World, but was made a canonical character for the sake of promoting the movie. Although he never appears in the actual manga, the things other characters say about him and his appearance in Chapter 0 make him out to be a legendary pirate. To wit: he was one of the top enforcers of Rocks D. Xebec's crew (putting him on par with freaks of nature such as Whitebeard, Big Mom, and Kaido), he was the rival of Pirate King Gol D. Roger, he singlehandedly stormed Navy Headquarters, was only defeated when Sengoku and Garp—two of the strongest officers in the navy at the time—teamed up against him, and successfully escaped from the World Government's prison on his own. In the actual movie though, he's defeated rather easily by Luffy who, at the point in the story that Strong World takes place, was nowhere near any of the characters Shiki was supposedly on par with. Even Chopper (whose strength is nowhere near the top fighters of the crew) could legitimately hurt Shiki with his “Cloven Roseo Metel” attack.
  • In Persona 4, the protagonists gain combat skill along with their Personas, and regularly tangle with increasingly monstrous Shadows with melee weapons. In Persona 4: The Animation, they can only use their Personas to fight, and have to hang in the background and hope the Shadows don't target them. The in-universe justification is that they can't legally acquire weapons in the real world, but it's pretty clear that the real reason is the anime's distinct lack of budget.
  • In Piccolino no Bouken, an adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio, Geppetto was extremely weakened. He wasn't particularly badass in the book, but he could handle a fight and jump out of windows. Here he is physically lame, with severe hearing and sight problems.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Unlike his game counterpart Blue, Gary Oak never becomes Champion or a Gym Leader, and by the end of Pokémon: The Original Series, he gives up on training to become a Pokémon researcher like his grandfather.
    • Korrina isn't wimpy exactly, but she got toned down in the anime. In the original Pokémon X and Y, she's long since mastered Mega Evolution, but in XY, it takes several episodes before she obtains a Mega Stone and has mastered it. Somewhat justified; in the game, she's already a Successor, but in the anime, she's chastised by her grandfather Gurkinn for her recklessness and has to earn that title.
    • In the original Pokémon Black and White, Iris is one of the strongest trainers in Unova, being either the student of Drayden or his successor as Gym Leader of the 8th and strongest gym. And in Pokémon Black and White 2, she is even stronger to the point where she becomes the Champion. In the anime, she's a rookie who can't even evolve her Axew and gets beaten by Drayden twice. Again, somewhat justified as she's still in training as opposed to her game counterpart and it's stated that she will one day take Drayden's place as Gym Leader with his words in his last appearance in the anime. Her post-series special also shows her continuing to grow stronger, with her Dragonite growing strong enough to help her defeat Clair, and with her catching another dragon-type Pokémon (Gible). When she makes a return in Journeys, she has finally become the Champion of Unova like in the games, even having evolved her Axew all the way into Haxorus.
    • The evil organization leaders take a considerable downgrade in the show as well. Usually, they are the strongest enemy of their team and a difficult boss fight. In the show, the instant their plan falls apart they give up and/or get arrested. Ghetsis and N are the biggest examples, as in the Black and White games awakening the Legendary was only part of his plan and it's implied he was going to defeat N after he served his purpose (including his Legendary dragon) while in the show, neither Ghetsis nor N have any Pokémon themselves. Giovanni is the only exception, as he has to retain his role as Team Rocket's boss in order for Jessie, James, and Meowth to remain motivated enough to go after Pikachu as a gift for him, the few plans of his that do fail therefore never see him get arrested.
    • Ash, the anime counterpart to Red, started out as this for the longest time. Red ends up one of the most powerful trainers in the games by Pokémon Gold and Silver and is a legend in-series. Ash's battling abilities are inconsistent and depending on the specific era of the anime, he doesn't get much respect for his countless achievements. It took over two decades for him to develop into an Adaptational Badass, and it all finally paid off in Sun and Moon and Journeys which made him Alola's Champion and World Champion, respectively.
    • Lillie from Pokémon Sun and Moon suffers this briefly, as in the anime, she suffers a crippling fear of touching Pokémon due to a mysterious incident involving a trip with her mother. This is vastly different that her game counterpart where she just doesn't like Pokémon getting hurt in Battles. She eventually goes through Character Development and drops this fear once the situation is cleared up.
    • In the anime, Goldeen behave just like Magikarp when on land (as a useless fish that flops about). This became downplayed when there ended up being a few episodes in Johto showing Goldeen walking on land with its fins.
    • Some Legendary and Mythical Pokémon tend to get hit with a power decrease in the anime:
      • Celebi is a Master of All Olympus Mon, has the ability to travel through time and is the guardian of the forest. You wouldn't know that from both of its movie appearances, where it almost never fights opponents, gets smacked around very easily by Houndoom and Shuppetnote , constantly has to be bailed out of trouble, and even Grings Kodai, a fleshy mortal human with nothing but a mechanical claw, makes it his bitch. What's worse is that Mew (who is just as strong/diverse as Celebi), by contrast, has been shown to match its even more powerful clone almost perfectly.
      • Latios and Latias of Pokémon Heroes are a funny case. In the games, they are among one of best of Dragon-type Pokémon, but their fight against Annie's and Oakley's Espeon and Ariadosnote  boils down to the two turning invisible and attempted ramming before getting pummeled by Swifts and Night Shades followed by getting wrapped up in electrified nets. However in the climax in which a tidal wave with enough force to shatter solid rock threatens Alto Mare, the two dragons used their psychic attacks to level it, even after Latios was used for hours as a battery for a superweapon. It's implied that the two don't fight very often compared to other on-screen Pokémon in the series, making the two extreme examples of Unskilled, but Strong that can only use their strongest powers in die or fly moments.
      • Magearna in the games is a powerful but slow Pokémon with good defensive stats and typing, a powerful Secret Art, and an Ability that boosts its Special Attack stat when a Pokémon faints. In its debut appearance in Pokémon: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel, it rarely battles, only uses Fleur Cannon maybe once or twice, and spends the last third as a Damsel in Distress for the rest of the cast to rescue.
    • Played with when it comes to Misty. She's a competent trainer; however, her older sisters are the Cerulean City Gym Leaders, instead of Misty herself as in the games. That being said, Misty ended up being the strongest trainer among them and took over as Gym Leader when she stopped traveling with Ash.
    • Speaking of Misty, her Starmie. In Pokémon Red and Blue it is a Wake-Up Call Boss (giving grief to players who started with Charmander and even Squirtle), but in the anime it is infamous for losing almost every fight it's been in. Its pre-evolved form Staryu has a better win count, and Misty eventually favors using the latter more that she removes Starmie from her team later in Kanto for her sisters to use (only seeing it again when she herself settles into her gym leader role).
    • Psyduck. Most of the time they appear in the anime, it's a Butt-Monkey Hidden Badass comic relief. However the anime emphasized how useless Tail Whip are (it's not depending on the play style) and how most of the Psyduck depicted in the first season of the anime cannot swim while in the game they're more than capable of swimming and being taught Surf. Later appearances of another instances of Psyduck in the anime subverts the "wimp" part though.
    • The one time a Master Ball (the Poké Ball that can capture any Pokémon regardless of how strong it is in the games) was used in the anime, it ended up being eaten by a Whiscash (a giant catfish Pokémon). It would later be referenced in one of Nidothing's videos in Pokémon Horizons: The Series, and properly stated to be the one Poke Ball that can capture anything (although the actual ball itself doesn't appear).
  • In Pokémon Adventures, this happens with Whitney, oddly enough. Despite her and her Miltank being feared as one of the most difficult Gym Leader battles in all of Pokémon, she loses all of her fights in the Adventures manga. During her only battle where she comes off as a credible threat, she doesn't even use Miltank, instead using Cleffa and Igglybuff (who are Baby Pokémon, and in-game they are exactly as strong as they sound).
  • This also happens to Brock in The Electric Tale of Pikachu manga. In the game he's the first Wake-Up Call Boss, for Charmander players and in his first appearance in the anime, it took Ash two attempts to beat him, only getting the upper hand due to accidentally setting off the gym's fire sprinklers (which even then, Ash never actually won that battle, as he decides to forfeit after Brock's siblings complain about Ash doing this and try to stop him from hurting Onix further). In the manga, however, Ash's Pikachu manages to wipe out Onix and two Geodudes in a single splash panel, despite the type disadvantage.
  • In the original cartoon incarnation, Mojo Jojo, though Laughably Evil, was the Arch-Enemy of The Powerpuff Girls and certainly one of the most competent enemies at that — he was able to Take Over the World about three times, take on all three of the Girls, and took out an alien overlord with ease. But in Powerpuff Girls Z, he was portrayed as far less competent and more of a dimwitted, Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain and wasn't even taken seriously as a threat, unlike the original Mojo. In addition, in the original cartoon, the Rowdyruff Boys had the same powers as the Powerpuff Girls and are viscious fighters. In the anime, they don't have powers and are simply jerks and pranksters.
  • While Akane Tendo from Ranma ½ is generally Overshadowed by Awesome, the anime makes her a much worse fighter than she is in the manga. Her feats of strength and ability considerably lessened in the anime and is made a Damsel in Distress more often (in the manga she's more often a Damsel out of Distress). One clear example of this is that in the anime, Kodachi is a notable threat to Akane and threatens to defeat her a few times over the course of the show. In the manga, Kodachi will make appearances by attacking Akane out of nowhere and is casually deflected.
  • Record of Ragnarok generally averts this hard with almost everyone getting Adaptational Badass including various Real Life historical figures. However a few goddesses weren’t so lucky compared to their male peers and got this, overlapping Chickification.
    • Durga, Parvati and Kali top god Shiva’s wives are immensely powerful in Hinduism with Kali in particular even able to kick her husband’s ass and literally stand on him (she’s the ultimate embodiment of time, the universe and life). In Record of Ragnarok however they are presented as being far weaker than their shared hubby, don’t perform any fighting or feat of strength and are purely just Shiva’s cheerleaders.
    • The Valkyries (Brunhilde, Göll, Randgriz, Hrist etc) generally get a fair amount of this. While they’re the ones responsible for giving humanity a chance to prove themselves against the gods in a tournament, as a group and individually they are far weaker than in Norse Mythology where they were considered to be close to Thor in strength and were all deadly warriors. In Record of Ragnarok while they still have impressive divine powers, especially Brunhilde the protagonist, most of them are non-fighters who use their powers for support rather than engaging in any combat themselves.
  • Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness does this to Claire Redfield overlapping with They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character. Claire in the games (and even spin-off media like Resident Evil: Heavenly Island), is incredibly badass and skilled Action Girl who’s capable of taking down hordes of zombies and super monsters. In the Netflix series, she’s more of a Faux Action Girl with her experience surviving Raccoon City being brought up, but all she does is do a bit of investigating, knock down a government agent with a lamp before getter tased and bound to a chair, becoming a Damsel in Distress for Leon to rescue. She doesn’t even get to directly help Leon kill the villain Humanoid Abomination Jason, getting knocked out before she can accomplish much. Particularly odd given Resident Evil: Degeneration (made by the same studio), at least highlighted Claire’s abilities with a One-Woman Army scene, even though she was mostly regulated to babysitting. Averted in Resident Evil: Death Island however which brings back Claire’s badassery.
  • In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the Big Bad Akio Ohtori is a master chessmaster who is able to manipulate the entire student council into entering the dueling game, on top of being a sexual predator who sleeps with both the title character (who is underage) and his own sister, Anthy. The version seen in the movie adaptation Adolescence of Utena is a much more pathetic character who is shown to have lost the keys to his Cool Car, which was heavily associated with Akio in the series. As well, Adolescence reveals that Akio fell out a window some time before the events of the film, when he realized that Anthy was conscious while he was raping her.
  • While Tsukune Aono from Rosario + Vampire was a wimp at the start of the series, he also Took a Level in Badass several times. However, the anime portrayed him as a wimp for almost the entire time. In Capu2, he already got his Power-Up, but never uses his power until the end of the series. In the end of the first anime season, when he got his vampire powers from Moka, it wasn't him who defeated Kuyo, it was Moka again.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Tuxedo Mask gets a lot less formidable going from manga to anime. The manga version is a Magic Knight who has decent attacks and swordsmanship while the 1992 anime version mostly drops in to provide a timely distraction that lets Usagi get back on her feet, seldom fighting at all.
    • While Sailor Chibimoon is a quite capable fighter in the manga version, even getting her own Eternal form with the other Guardians, she's rather pathetic in the 1992 anime. Her basic attack in S, the Pink Sugar Heart Attack, is nothing more than a slap and her only real attack in Super S is calling Pegasus. It's a far cry from fighting both Death Phantom and Pharaoh 90. Basically, Chibimoon was turned into comic relief.
    • To a point, all Sailor Guardians are reduced to this in the original 1992 anime. The girls in the manga are meant to be Princess Serenity's protectors, all with amazing power that can tangle with the Monster of the Week and defeat them with ease. By the end of the series, all of them obtain Eternal forms along with Sailor Moon. However, in the '92 anime, they're mostly around to damage and distract the monster before Sailor Moon defeats them and they only reach their Super levels by the end.
  • Saint Seiya:
    • Shun. In the anime filler-episodes and in the non-canon Toei movies, his only role is to be defeated and allow the Big Damn Heroes entrance of his brother.
    • The anime also turned Marin into a Faux Action Girl who loses pretty much every fight she is part of (sans her rematch against Asterion). The anime also ignores her Offscreen Moment of Awesome of climbing Star Hill and finding Shion's corpse (a manga flashback shows that the Pope himself was surprised that Saga, the most powerful Gold Saint, managed to do it).
  • In the anime of Sands of Destruction, protagonist Kyrie is pathetically incompetent in terms of even staying out of the way during a fight, tending to hog the Distress Ball like a damsel looking for a knight. While he didn't like to fight in the original game or the later manga adaptation, he was at least capable there.
  • School-Live!:
    • Miki is presented considerably differently between the anime and manga. The anime removed her confrontations with the others, making her much more muted than her manga version. The anime also toned down her more Action Girl qualities. In the manga she's on a similar level to Kurumi but in the anime she has more difficulties getting around.
    • Yuki in episode 12 can't even hit a zombie with a baseball bat. Yuki in chapter 29 kills a zombie with a mop. She freaks out afterwards, but it is still is impressive for a girl who was The Load until then. Yuki's Adaptational Comic Relief also causes a hit to her general competence in the anime.
  • Kasuga from the Sengoku Basara franchise gets hit hard with this. In the games, she's a bit spacy but a fully capable ass-kicker like all the others. The anime on the other hand turns her into a full blown Faux Action Girl, who exists solely to fawn over Kenshin and lose fights.
  • Asuka suffers a measure of this in the anime of Senran Kagura, being a klutz with skills inferior to her peers who's afraid of her own spirit animal. Contrast the games, where she's a hot-blooded, perfectly capable generalist with a strong drive for self-improvement and no problem using her nine.
  • When adapting Snow White with the Red Hair into an anime the titular heroine is made incredibly quick to forgive and worry over those who violently attack her, now gets multi-day hangovers from drinking, has her feet start bleeding when she's trying to learn to waltz (while originally it was her instructor whose feet were injured by her stepping on them) and in the first episode she backs away in terror and sits listlessly before deciding what to do very unlike her quick decision from the manga. It's an especially odd choice as her determination, decisiveness and career driven life are key aspects of the story and how she builds relationships and are left as informed attributes by the change.
  • Many characters in Sonic X are significantly less useful than in the games, with Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles and Rouge being the only real exceptions. It was probably done for Cast Speciation, because everyone in the games can use Sonic's basic attacks and nearly keep up with him.
  • Several of the characters in the Soul Eater anime get this. They're not really any less competent, but many of them don't reach the heights of power their manga counterparts did, due to the series having a Gecko Ending.
    • Crona/Ragnarok never becomes a kishin. On the other hand, he manages to keep up his sanity, so he comes out ahead there.
    • Soul never becomes death scythe. In the manga he killed Arachne and devoured her soul to become one, but in the anime Asura betrays and eats her instead.
    • Death the Kid never succeeds his father, due to the latter being Spared by the Adaptation.
  • Soul Hunter, the first anime adaptation of Hoshin Engi, is from the start much different compared to the original manga. As a result, while some characters are still powerful as their manga counterparts (e.g. Shinkohyo and Hiko Ko), others aren't both because the story ends much earlier before they all get a massive power up and because their roles in the story become different:
    • Taikobo himself neither upgrades his paope Dashinben nor obtains other paope aside from Karyuuhyo, much less the Super Paope Taikyokuzu.
    • Nataku, while remaining powerful, doesn't get ahold of some of his latest paope like Kasenso or Kinsen.
    • While Bunchu's power is overall the same, he's not nearly as terrifying and powerful as he was in the manga, while also being much less devoted to the Yin dynasty.
    • Dakki's sister Ko Kibi can use her paope to transform into other people or copy the appearence and weapons of others, but is quickly defeated when exposed to a single, lesser paope. Contrasting her manga self, whose powers allow her to pretty much transform into anything she wants.
    • King Chu, despite being transformed by Dakki in a giant rampaging Kaiju, goed down to the heroes and Dakki, contrasting his manga self, whose form allowed him to overpower the likes of late-story Yozen and Nataku simultaneously and took a Villainous Breakdown to lose.
    • Dakki herself only uses her Keisei Genjo to seduce people and is more of a schemer than a fighter, but even then, rather than being an extremely powerful Sennyo who's sided with Joka to manipulate historical events in a long-term plan to take over her body and merge with the Earth itself, here she's just a barely conscious doll and a tool for Genshi Tenson to manipulate historical events at the command of the three personifications of time, and ultimately goes on a rampage and is killed by the heroes.
  • Several examples in Tekken: Bloodline, which loosely adapts Tekken 3:
    • While Paul Phoenix was undefeated in the third King of Iron Fist Tournament, and defeats the Final Boss Ogre (albeit before the latter goes One-Winged Angel), in Bloodline, he is beaten by King and is unable to put up much of a fight against Ogre even when teamed up with Xiaoyu and Hwaorang.
    • Downplayed with Heihachi. While he's shown to be one of the strongest fighters present, his fight against Jin, once he turns into Devil Jin, is much more of a Curb-Stomp Battle than it was in the game. In Tekken 3, Heihachi more or less shrugs off Devil Jin throwing him through a concrete wall. Here, Jin beats him to a bloody pulp and sends him flying.
    • Nina Williams, whom Xiaoyu defeats in the very first round with relative ease, despite having been built up in prior episodes as a deadly assassin.
  • The main heroes of Tenchi Muyo! take a step down in most adaptations outside of the manga (which, being set in a variation of the OVA continuity, even allows them to set up Adaptational Badass moments). When most of your cast is made up of gods and goddesses in some way, you can only go down. Washu and Sasami are heavily hit hard here, not to mention Tenchi himself.
  • In the Tokyo Ghoul manga, Ken Kaneki is a badass fighter from the start. None of this appears in the anime up until the Aogiri arc, where he mostly gets back on track just in time for the season to end (stemming from complete removal of basically all his character development scenes regarding his combat training). However in the 2nd season, he's rendered just as ineffectual as his first season incarnation thus far (especially with the removal of one of the most iconic scenes in the manga completely (103 Bones)). Two of the most stand out examples from the first season were the fights with Rize and the Scrapper. In the manga, Kaneki manages to beat the crap out of both of them. In the anime however, he's completely helpless.
  • Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle: In the light novels, Lisesharte Atismata has a moderate reputation as a fighter and engineer. In the anime, her contributions in battle are negligible at best, if only to give Lux Arcadia and the other girls in his harem some shared glory.
  • The Venus Versus Virus anime does not follow the manga story, due to it being created while it was running, and thus all of Sumire's Character Development and the skills she learns aren't included. This overall leaves a far weaker character, both emotionally and physically.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Katsuya Jonouchi in the manga is very strong and does good in fights, beating up Bandit Keith Howard and grab-holding Kaiba by his coat collar — and taking down a brutish serial killer. In Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh anime he was the only one injured during Death-T 1 and Miho saved the day, and was also beaten up by Kaiba's guards and the model Aileen Rao. In the second-series anime he comes across more as a wannabe badass, getting beat up by Bandit Keith and Kaiba grabbing his fist mid punch to throw him to the ground. His Dueling skills also take a hit, as in the manga he only loses fairly in a duel we see twice — once against Kaiba, once against Seeker (three times if you count Rishid), and a good portion of the Battle City arc was about his Character Development and his desire to surpass Yugi. In the anime, he loses to Yugi in Duelist Kingdom, loses to Duke Devlin in a filler, loses to Kaiba again in Alcatraz, loses to Mai in the Orichalcos arc, and loses to Siegfried in the Grand Championship, though he does get several victories in between and his losses there boiled down to luck. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions, which is manga-based, continues the trend, as Jonouchi does nothing of importance, is mocked by Aigami for failing to escape a dimension and has to be rescued, and even wears a dog suit like he did in the anime to help pay for a new duel disk, not even getting to fight.
    • Mokuba, believe it or not. In his first appearances, he was a rather creepy villain who went head to head with Dark Yugi three times, and an expert at the game Capsule Monsters. Even after his Heel–Face Turn, he was only kidnapped twice, and he escaped by himself one of those times. The anime, however, ignored his early villain phase almost entirely, didn't even hint at his skill in other games, and generally played him up as an ineffectual Morality Pet for his brother.
    • In the anime, Thief King Bakura is first seen captured by two random guards and stumbling as they haul him along, before immediately being possessed by Yami Bakura and taking on his personality from that point on. When Yami Bakura releases him after he's outlived his usefulness, he's confused and horrified as he turns into sand. In the manga he was just as wicked as Yami Bakura and even schemed openly with his future self as his introduction into the story involves him assaulting the Pharaoh's palace with the tomb that he robbed from the Pharaoh's father, taking out all of the guards surrounding the palace in the process and while he was scared at turning into sand, he still tried to summon Zorc while it was happening.
    • Yugi himself. In the manga he has a gradual character arc building up to his major Took a Level in Badass moment of defeating Yami Bakura in a duel that, while it happened pretty suddenly, was still within the realms of being believable. In the anime some of his moments are given to Yami Yugi, and there's filler where he contributes next to nothing, the worst offender being the Doma arc where he becomes a Damsel in Distress and is offscreen for the majority of the entire arc.
    • In the manga, Ra was completely immune against the Effects of Osiris and Obelisk due to being on top of their pyramid hierarchy. In the anime, Ra can be affected by their Effects when it is not God Phoenix. This trope was necessary since Yugi Muto would have never taken out all three gods at once.
  • Micchy from the Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside anime is a far cry from the fierce and dangerous Mitsumata Nozuchi of the original Yo-kai Watch games, being relatively weak and usually suffering a one-hit K.O. in battles. This could be explained, however, by Micchy possibly not being the same Mitsumata Nozuchi, but a much younger yokai of the same species, with way less battle experience.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top