Character heights are anything but consistent when it comes to Dragon Ball. Although certain characters are always drawn taller or shorter than one another, Akira Toriyama’s art style chances so much over the course of the manga, that it would be unreasonable to expect each character to match their canonical height every single time they’re on page.
At the same time, this doesn’t obscure Dragon Ball’s glaring height errors by any means. Particularly in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, character heights have a habit of being hilariously wrong. While most of these instances are harmless, Dragon Ball’s inconsistencies with height pose an issue where fusion is concerned.
10 Raditz’s Arrival
Even though there are minor height inconsistencies all throughout Dragon Ball, the franchise arguably doesn’t hit its first major issue until Raditz’s introduction. Rather infamously, Raditz’s appearance at Kame House features height shifts in-between just about every scene. Krillin goes from standing at Goku’s shoulders to barely reaching Raditz’s waist.
Goku himself is noticeably shorter than Raditz– more so than he is Piccolo– which in itself raises some questions as Piccolo’s canonical height is freakishly tall. This doesn’t even take into consideration Gohan, whose short stature will end up being a point of contention in just a few episodes.
9 Piccolo Is Somehow 7’4
Speaking of Piccolo, it’s worth addressing how Dragon Ball treats him height-wise. Piccolo Daimao was introduced far taller than anyone in Dragon Ball, towering over the rest of the cast. This is a trait Piccolo is canonically supposed to share as an adult, but this isn’t exactly telegraphed properly.
Piccolo is clearly taller than the rest of the cast, but not by nearly two feet. Goku is canonically anywhere between 5’7 & 5’10, which would suggest Piccolo should be somewhere around 6’4 to match how he’s often depicted near Goku. Piccolo’s height also brings Raditz’s into question, as the two more or less stand even.
8 Krillin Keeps Shrinking
As Dragon Ball’s art style evolved, certain characters’ heights were gradually changed. Where Krillin once stood up to Goku’s shoulders during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and early Saiyan arc, he simply keeps shrinking over the course of the series.
This is not only true of the original Dragon Ball where Krillin’s about as tall as a child by the end of the Buu arc, but also Dragon Ball Super. As the franchise has progressed, Krillin has only started looking younger. While the original manga and even GT at least visibly aged the character, DBS shrinks Krillin to unreasonable levels.
7 Gohan’s Interarc Growth Spurt
Gohan ends up experiencing the exact opposite of Krillin. Where he’s introduced as a very small toddler, Gohan ends up one of the tallest characters in Dragon Ball. While this does make sense considering Dragon Ball Z follows Gohan’s life from childhood into adulthood, the problem with Gohan’s growth spurt is that it happens when he’s a child.
At the start of the Saiyan arc, Gohan is noticeably shorter than Krillin. By the time they’re fighting the Saiyans, Krillin isn’t actually that much taller. Come the Namek arc, Krillin & Gohan are about as tall as each other, and by the Cell Games, Gohan is starting to inch Krillin in terms of height.
6 Kid Goku, Kid Gohan, & Kid Goten’s Heights
There is little consistency in how Akira Toriyama depicts Saiyan children throughout Dragon Ball. Goku is technically a pre-teen at the start of the series, but he looks even younger than Gohan did as a child during the Cell arc. Pre-teen Goku has more in common with Goten from the Buu arc design-wise, but even Goten has sharper features than his father did and is noticeably taller.
5 Vegeta Should Always Be Shorter Than Bulma
Vegeta is introduced as an extremely short character, a detail Dragon Ball holds onto for some time. Goku is clearly taller than Vegeta during the Saiyan arc, and the Prince of all Saiyans is only about as tall as final form Frieza during the Namek arc.
Once Vegeta starts appearing more often with Bulma, however, this consistency goes out the door. Bulma should always be taller than Vegeta– which is reflected in the original series– but Dragon Ball Super has since made a point to depict Vegeta as taller, regardless of what little sense it makes.
4 King Cold’s Introduction
King Cold’s introductory panel is utterly insane, depicting the man absolutely towering over his son Frieza. The two aren’t even comparable in height– King Cold could fill an entire page in the manga just by standing up. This naturally sets up King Cold as a genuine threat (a great feint for Future Trunks’ introduction,) but subsequent scenes drop Cold’s gigantism. While he’s still far taller than Frieza, King Cold stands at a rather reasonable height for a Dragon Ball villain in practice. Dragon Ball Super: Broly makes Cold even shorter, not all that much taller than King Vegeta.
3 Goku & Vegeta Shouldn’t Be Able To Fuse
The Metamoran Fusion Dance has three major criteria participants need to follow: their movements need to be exact, their Battle Power has to be evenly matched, and they need to be around the same height. That last bit is simply important from a logistical perspective as the Fusion Dance involves in-sync motions between two parallel partners.
Goku and Vegeta might fuse into Gogeta during Dragon Ball Super: Broly, but it should not have been possible. Ignoring the discrepancies in power between the two martial artists, Vegeta is around half a foot shorter than Goku. In no world should they be able to pull off a canonical Fusion Dance.
2 Kid Trunks (Dragon Ball Super)
Goten is his own bag of worms, but Kid Trunks’ height throughout Dragon Ball Super has been particularly egregious. Modern Dragon Ball clearly wants to keep everyone in the main cast recognizable with their most popular designs, but this also means characters like Goten and Trunks haven’t been allowed to age.
The glaring problem here is that Trunks in Dragon Ball Super is now older than Future Trunks was during his TV Special, but the former still looks & acts like a literal child– nothing like the teenage Trunks who fought the Androids and travelled back in time. Although the differences in personality make perfect sense, Trunks’ height discrepancies do not.
1 Dende Grows Up & Becomes A Child Again In The Same Arc
Dende might have the most unintentionally hilarious height change in Dragon Ball. At the start of the Majin buu arc, Dende is clearly a young adult Namekian. He’s taller, his face is visibly older, and he’s even wearing Kami’s old robes in order to better fit in as God. The next time Dende appears, however, he’s been deaged. In a rare instance where Akira Toriyama actually forgot something, Dende is shrunk down back to his Cell Games design, growing up and becoming a child again in the course of a single story arc.