They're so utterly inconsistent! The manga isn't quite so bad, because nobody other than Vegeta or Trunks can last in a significant way against them in the manga, whereas Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha, Goku and Krillin all get destroyed in a handful of attacks, and Gohan's transformation is a lot sooner in that medium. While I get the idea behind drawing out the mental anguish and the mixed emotions Gohan had about hurting people, and I probably prefer the anime style because it highlights the right things, the manga just makes more sense, on this occasion, because for Krillin and the other Earthlings to last more than a few strikes makes no sense whatsoever.
Here's my reasoning around the whole thing. If Piccolo couldn't even hurt full power Imperfect Cell, and yet he could strike the Cell Juniors with great success, then the Cell Juniors are less powerful than Imperfect Cell, and probably equal or less powerful than the Androids 17 and 18. So then Trunks and Vegeta should chew them up! They were far ahead of Super Saiyans, and they took on Cell with 17 and were greatly in advance of his power, and then even Perfect Cell (suppressed power) faced a decent challenge from them. And Goku should be well capable of defending himself too. I just wish they'd made it so that a single Cell Junior fought the Earthlings and Piccolo, and 3 others fought the Ascended Saiyans, so that the Cell Junior's power level could be more consistent than what had previously been shown. There's just no way that any fighter who can last against an Ascended Saiyan can be so weak! Equally anyone that doesn't 1-hit K.O. Krillin has no business matching up to an Ascended Saiyan.
I think this is about the most annoying inconsistencies in the anime, I'm wracking my brains to find something that comes close to it. Pikkon 2-hit K.O.ing Cell when he died annoyed me too, but I figure maybe things are different in H.F.I.L, it's possible that place removes or suppresses the evil soul's strength. And maybe Cell was only as strong in the first place because he had muscle-memory from every Z-fighter through their cells and knew how to fight them, while Pikkon was totally outside of his experience. Plus that was filler, exclusive to the anime.
What do other people think? And can you think of a worse inconsistency?