Dragon Ball Z — Character Heights

Click Add to include a character in the chart. Deselect to remove. Max 10 at once.

Note: What You Should Know About Dragon Ball Z Character Heights

Dragon Ball Z is one of the biggest anime and manga franchises ever made, and this chart shows exactly how wild its cast of characters is. The 50 fighters here span from Whis at a towering 248 cm (over 8 feet) all the way down to Guldo and Babidi at just 130 cm — a spread of more than a meter between the tallest and the shortest. Which is funny, because in Dragon Ball, height matters almost exactly zero when it comes to who wins a fight.

Where Do These Official Heights Come From?

Like most anime, Dragon Ball characters get their "canon" numbers from official guidebooks released by the publisher. The famous Daizenshuu encyclopedia volumes from the 1990s list each character's height, weight, birthday, and blood type, and creator Akira Toriyama designed every one of these fighters, so the centimeters on this page are the closest thing the franchise has to official measurements. That's also why some figures feel oddly specific — Goku is 175 cm (5'9"), Piccolo is 226 cm (7'5"), and Whis is just a hair under 2.5 meters.

Size Does NOT Equal Power in Dragon Ball

This is the single most important lesson this chart teaches: in Dragon Ball, the scariest characters are frequently the smallest in the room. The universe's power scaling has nothing to do with body size.

• Frieza (158 cm, about 5'2") — shorter than the average human man, and his final form can casually destroy an entire planet. The ultimate height-chart flex.
• Krillin (153 cm) — the shortest core Z Fighter and one of the strongest humans alive (at least in the manga). A bald head and zero height never stopped him.
• Guldo (130 cm) — the runt of the Ginyu Force nearly beat Gohan and Krillin using psychic powers, including freezing time while holding his breath.
• Chiaotzu (138 cm) — a tiny psychic fighter who once self-destructed against the giant Nappa to buy time. He got revived by the Dragon Balls later, because of course he did.
• Burter (245 cm) — the second-tallest fighter here, who loudly claimed to be "the fastest in the universe." Being huge and fast is a rare combo.
• Whis (248 cm) towers over his boss Beerus (185 cm) — the angel attendant is taller than the God of Destruction himself. Even gods get outsized by their staff.
• Majin Buu (213 cm) — a pink genie-like blob who overwhelmed the strongest fighters on Earth without breaking a sweat.

The Saiyan Race: Names, Tails, and Pure Power

Most of the main cast are Saiyans — a proud warrior race from Planet Vegeta that sent infant soldiers to conquer other worlds. Goku (birth name: Kakarot) was dispatched to Earth as a baby right before Frieza blew up his home planet, landed with amnesia, and the rest is history. A few things that make Saiyans the franchise's favorite race:

• They're named after vegetables — a running Toriyama joke. Kakarot = carrot, Vegeta = vegetable, Raditz = radish, Nappa = napa cabbage, Broly = broccoli, Paragus = asparagus, and Turles = lettuce.
• Monkey tails and the Great Ape — a Saiyan who looks at a full moon transforms into an Oozaru, a giant ape with roughly 10x their normal power. Goku's tail was permanently removed by Kami to stop this.
• Zenkai boosts — Saiyans get significantly stronger after recovering from near-death injuries. That's why their power jumps so absurdly between fights.
• Power levels and scouters — Frieza's soldiers measured opponents with scouter devices. Official guidebook stats include gems like "farmer with a shotgun: 5," Raditz around 1,500, and Frieza's final form at a staggering 120 million, with Super Saiyan Goku topping it at 150 million.
• "It's over 9,000!" — the most famous line in the English dub is technically wrong: in the original manga, Vegeta reads Goku's power as "over 8,000." The mistranslation became one of anime's biggest memes.
• Super Saiyan power-ups — official guidebooks peg Super Saiyan at a 50x multiplier, Super Saiyan 2 at 100x, and Super Saiyan 3 at a ridiculous 400x.

Namekians, Androids, and the Rest of the Zoo

• Namekians are tall green humanoids with stretchy arms, regeneration, and the ability to fuse. That's why Piccolo stands 226 cm — the tallest member of the hero squad. Dende (155 cm) is the young exception, later becoming Earth's new Guardian.
• Androids 17 and 18 (both 170 cm) are human twins modified by Dr. Gero, while Android 16 (215 cm) is a fully mechanical behemoth built in the image of Gero's late son.
• Cell (200 cm) is a bio-android assembled from the cells of Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Frieza himself — he reaches "Perfect Form" by absorbing Androids 17 and 18.
• Frieza's family follows a cold theme: Frieza (freezer), Cooler (cooler — his older brother, seen in the movies), and King Cold.
• The Ginyu Force are all named after dairy products: Ginyu (milk), Jeice (cheese), Burter (butter), Recoome (cream), and Guldo (yogurt). Their leader Ginyu's real power is swapping bodies.
• The Demon Realm trio — Babidi (130 cm), the wizard who revived Majin Buu, and Dabura (200 cm), the King of the Demon Realm, round out the shorter end of the chart.

Fun Facts to Drop on Friends

• The manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995 and has sold well over 260 million copies worldwide; the Dragon Ball Z anime aired from 1989 to 1996, and Dragon Ball Super continues the story today.
• Transformations don't change official height — except Super Saiyan 3, where Goku's hair grows all the way down to his waist. Strictly speaking, his hair gets taller than him.
• The Oozaru form is technically the largest on-screen version of any Saiyan — a 10-meter-plus giant ape dwarfs every humanoid on this chart, then the transformation ends and the official height snaps back.
• Fusion combines power (and height): Vegito from the Potara earrings, Gotenks from the fusion dance. Goten and Trunks learned to go Super Saiyan as kids — Toriyama has hinted half-Saiyan hybrids may have even more potential than pure Saiyans.
• The legendary first Super Saiyan wasn't Goku — Toriyama revealed the original was a warrior named Yamoshi, whose spirit became the seed of the Super Saiyan God ritual in Battle of Gods.
• Mr. Satan (188 cm) is the self-proclaimed world champion who took credit for defeating Cell and Majin Buu (he's Hercule in some English editions) — proof that fame and height are also unrelated to power.
• Pikkon (230 cm) exists only in the anime's Other World Tournament filler arc — a great trivia card for height chart nerds.
• Uub (173 cm as an adult) is the reincarnation of Kid Buu, and Goku takes him as a student at the very end of Dragon Ball Z — the franchise literally ends with the shortest big bad being reborn.

So the next time you pick fighters to compare in the chart, remember: this universe runs on ki control, transformations, and stubbornness — not centimeters. Pick any 10 characters, hit Add, and see how the Ginyu Force's giants stack up against Earth's terrifying 5-footers.