Did Usagi’s Height Change as Sailor Moon Progressed?

Does Usagi ever get taller?

Does Usagi ever get taller?

If we were talking about the real world, of course it would be silly to ask the question of whether or not a second-year junior high school girl grew taller as she got older, but we’re talking about an anime/manga where characters have all manners of hair colors and are named after rabbits, so nothing should be taken for granted. For the sake of convenience, we’re going to be restricting our discussion today to only the anime since the manga both lacks the hard numbers that we need and also tends to be a little bit more liberal in the character designs from scene to scene. But for the purposes of our discussion – namely, whether Usagi actually grew physically (though emotionally is another story!) throughout the series – we should have more than enough information to answer that.

You mean I can be tall??

You mean I can be tall??

Before we start talking about hard numbers, though, we should probably discuss our methodology and where we’re getting these stats from. While it’s hard to get numbers on exact heights for the any of the cast, we’re lucky in that Usagi’s height is given as 150cm.1 Fortunately for us, it’s not too difficult to find scans of the character design sheets used by the anime artists when animating Sailor Moon, so we can extrapolate the heights of the other characters from there.

Going with the assumption that time was reset after the fight with Beryl or, if you prefer, the theory that the Dark Kingdom Arc was actually short lived, we have every reason to believe that Usagi’s height didn’t change much, so we can keep using our 150cm figure for Sailor Moon R.

Things start to get complicated once we reach Sailor Moon S, however, since we know that Usagi has a birthday and that they’ve moved forward in school. Here, we will use Mamoru as a base for comparison and extrapolate numbers from there. Men, on average stop growing by the time they reach their early 20s,2 so it’s reasonably safe to say that his height is probably set.

Mamoru doesn't let height restrictions stop him...

Mamoru doesn’t let height restrictions stop him…

I couldn’t find any other official materials that showed the characters standing reasonably straight and with mutual characters (to use as a ruler), so unfortunately I don’t have a complete data-set for Sailor Moon R, SuperS, or Stars. If anyone has any materials, I’d be more than happy to check and add to this table!

Sailor Moon Character Heights, By Season
Character Classic R S SuperS
Usagi 150cm 150cm 158cm 158cm
ChibiUsa 84cm 114cm
Ami 163cm 164cm
Rei 165cm 166cm
Makoto 173cm 174cm
Minako 160cm 162cm
Mamoru 191cm 191cm 191cm
Haruka 186cm
Michiru 173cm
Setsuna 181cm
Hotaru 148cm

So what you can see here is that not only does Usagi actually get taller, but you can see that all of the other characters get taller as well. Even using the questionable math on Mamoru’s height being the same, you can see that Usagi rapidly caught up to Ami, with just a 6cm difference in height when it used to be over double that, at a difference of 13cm in the original.

Who you calling short?

Who you calling short?

Interestingly enough, Usagi’s height puts her actually at the low end of girls her age, with the average height of fourteen year old girls in Japan being 156.5cm.3 Her height from Sailor Moon S and beyond is right about in-line with the national averages, or even a little on the tall side. That might explain why Usagi’s hungry all the time – she was in the middle of a massive growth spurt!

So there you have it! It turns out that Usagi did indeed grow as the series progressed, as did the other Sailor Soldiers! I’m still on the lookout for more pictures that can be used to narrow down their heights, so if you know where to find other character design sheets for Sailor Moon RSuperS, or Stars, I’d appreciate a heads up!

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29 thoughts on “Did Usagi’s Height Change as Sailor Moon Progressed?

  1. Do you any tough estimates at all for their stars height, or adult height? I find it interesting to realize that all of them besides Usagi are between tall and really tall. Even Rei is borderline amazon.

    • Unfortunately, it’s really hard to gauge with Stars since we don’t have any characters who should have stayed the same height to use as a yard stick, kinda like Mamoru did for Sailor Moon S. Setsuna may work since a 19~20 year old woman is unlikely to have been growing too much, but I’m having a hard time finding any reference sketches with her next to the main cast. If you know where to find any, I’d love to take a look!

      As for Crystal Tokyo, that should definitely be doable for Neo Queen Serenity at least since both Mamoru and ChibiUsa are likely to have stayed the same. I don’t know if any of the future senshi ever appear standing in line together with Usagi/ChibiUsa to give a clear measurement, though…

  2. Maybe at the tail end of R when Chibiusa returns to Crystal Tokyo? IIRC they all stand next to eachother there.

    • I’ve been giving this issue some more thought (probably more thought than a grown adult should reasonably give to finding out how tall anime characters are…), and I’ve been thinking that Luna may be a good substitute to use as a ‘yard stick’ of sorts to measure the senshi across seasons. Odds are that she wouldn’t be changing in size much (if at all) and she appears with more characters, so she could make a good baseline.

      I’ll need to take a look into this shortly!

  3. another thing is Look at how tall she became when she became Queen serenity or something I really don’t rember much

  4. I’ve never bothered to convert the heights to feet and inches, some of the results surprised me.

    Mamoru is 6’3″ (taller than I expected), Haruka is 6’1″ (same thing), Michiru is 5’8″… and Chibiusa began at 2’9″ and ended at 3’8″. It makes me laugh how ridiculously small they originally made her.

    • It’s kinda weird… even at her tallest, she’s about the same height as a 5-6 year old. Sure keeps true to the chibi in her name!

  5. I saw maybe WikiMoon? That Usagi was 150 when the series starts.
    Mamoru and Haruka are 175
    Michiru is 163cm
    Setsuna is the tallest with 178
    Mako is 168
    I dont remember right now the heights for the other girls.
    But not counting Chibiusa and Hotaru, Usagi is the shortest.

    • To the best of my knowledge, we’ve only ever gotten one official height for any character in the series — Usagi at 150cm, which comes from an official character guide published after the first season wrapped up.

      As for the other heights you see around the internet, they’re all estimates that comes from a fan FAQ written up in the late 1990s. They’re generally not too far off, I think, but it’s worth knowing that they’re all estimates, just like the numbers I’ve written here.

      • I think I saw a chart with all the senshi and the heights (or at least lines…) when I read the manga. But I read it online, so I can’t really swear. lols

    • Yep! That’s an official height chart for Sailor Moon Crystal.
      It’s a bit hard to go by since they all have their shoes (with heels!) one, but it’s still interesting to see!

    • Maybe it’s just be, but the ones used in the original series appear to be adjusted (i.e., moved below the base line) to account for the heels. In particular, look at Rei’s feet in the old and new one. In the new one, she is clearly being lined up from her heels.

      Just my take on it!

  6. I just… really like this blog. It’s so relaxing to just flip through articles whenever I’m bored at work or randomly think of this goddamn series I can’t help but love. I’m so glad this site exists.

  7. Wow I can’t believe how short Usagi is. In the anime everybody looks so tall and lanky. I was never expecting to have to look down on Sailor Moon if we were talking face to face.

  8. Did I just read a full article about a fictional character height…?
    Looks like I did… And it was very interesting!

  9. Sometimes the amount of research you do -scares- impresses me!
    Guide books I had from the late 90’s gave slightly differing heights. One claimed Usagi was 4’8″ while the RPG manual said 4’11”.
    Haruka was said to be 5’8″ in the same source and Mamoru was 6’2″.
    These were English guides though, so the validity is probably questionable.

    If Harka really is 6’1″ it’s no wonder people think she’s a guy. That’s impressive!
    *stands on toes*

  10. looks like they keep.to.it in eternal. In the manga chibiuss is probably at least 140 ish especially towards stars

  11. Pingback: Height Comparison of Sailor Moon Characters - EverLast Value

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