How tall is Mikasa Ackerman?

How tall is Mikasa Ackerman? The guidebook figures

Mikasa Ackerman has two official heights, one for each half of Attack on Titan. The original Attack on Titan Guidebook, released in Japan in 2013 and in English in 2014, lists her at 170 cm (5′7″) and 68 kg in the year 850, when she graduates from the 104th Training Corps near the top of her class. The Character Encyclopedia FINAL, published to accompany the last arc, updates her for the year 854 to 176 cm (5′9″) and 70 kg.

This site uses 176 cm as Mikasa's headline height, as the data entry notes, because it is the most recent official figure and describes the adult Mikasa of the Marley and final arcs. The 170 cm figure is still canonical. It simply describes her at 15.

The same guidebook page gives her birthday as February 10. No official source measures Mikasa as a child, so heights for the 845 flashbacks are fan estimates.

The surprising weight line

The detail that surprises readers most in Mikasa's profile isn't her height but her weight. In 850 she and Eren are both 170 cm, yet the guidebook puts Mikasa at 68 kg and Eren at 63 kg. She is five kilograms heavier than the boy she spends the story protecting.

The books don't explain this, and we won't guess at Isayama's intentions. It does fit how she is drawn and written, though. Mikasa is described from the start as a prodigy in training, and the manga's art gives her visibly defined arms and abdominal muscles, which was unusual for a shōnen heroine in 2009. Isayama said he designed Mikasa as a woman who excels at combat because he found the usual male-female difference in physical strength uninteresting, according to his comments in the Kodansha magazine Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin (vol. 3) summarized on Wikipedia. A heavier listed weight at equal height is one way the official data reflects that idea.

After the timeskip the gap reverses. Eren goes up to 82 kg and Mikasa to 70 kg, while the height difference opens up to 7 cm.

Growing up: how unusual is Mikasa's height for her age?

Real growth data put Mikasa's numbers in perspective. On the CDC 2000 growth charts, the median American girl at about 15½ is roughly 162 cm. A 15-year-old girl at 170 cm sits near the 88th percentile, already tall for her age. Most girls are close to their adult height by 15, so the median gains only about a centimeter between 15½ and 19½.

Mikasa gains six. By 19 her 176 cm puts her near the 98th percentile on the same charts. That is unusual but not impossible. A girl who matures late can keep growing into her late teens. Within the story, the guidebooks give no special reason. The Ackerman bloodline is explained as giving its members combat ability and strength, and Isayama has said Mikasa, Levi and Kenny share the bloodline. Levi, at 160 cm, shows that the Ackerman name doesn't come with height.

Mikasa versus Eren, Armin and the 104th

The trio at the heart of the story makes the clearest comparison. In 850 Eren and Mikasa are level at 170 cm, and Armin is the smallest of the three. After the timeskip the order is Eren, then Mikasa, then Armin, with clear gaps between them.

Mikasa is the tallest woman among the main cast. Sasha and Ymir come closest, and Hange is level with Mikasa's 850 height. She is also taller than several men who outrank her or fight beside her, most obviously Levi and Armin.

Her rivalry with Annie is one of the more striking size contrasts in the series. The two are the most skilled fighters among the female trainees, yet 23 cm separate them after the timeskip, and 17 cm before it. Annie's style is built on technique and leverage, and Mikasa's height and reach are part of why the two fight so differently. To see either pairing to scale, open the Attack on Titan character hub or put them side by side in the height difference calculator.

Isayama's design: an Asian heroine who stands apart

Mikasa's design was deliberate. According to Isayama's comments in Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin, cited on Wikipedia, he based her on a woman he met while working a part-time job after moving to Tokyo, who wore a scarf late at night. He also wanted a heroine of Asian descent to set her apart from a mostly Western-looking cast. In the story she is one of the last people of Asian descent inside the Walls. He named her after the Japanese battleship Mikasa and has cited Casca from Berserk as an influence. He also said he wanted to avoid the familiar trope of a heroine whose main role is to motivate a man.

Her height supports that design. At 170 cm she is already as tall as the protagonist in the opening arcs. At 176 cm she is one of the taller characters in the whole cast. Wit Studio's animation and MAPPA's Final Season both draw her as tall and broad-shouldered, which matches the books. The red scarf, her most recognizable feature, also helps her stand out on screen in group shots of nearly identical Survey Corps uniforms.

Anime, live action and voice: does Mikasa's size change?

Neither anime studio published separate height charts, and both adaptations follow the guidebook proportions. In Wit Studio's seasons, Mikasa and Eren are drawn at about the same height in the trainee arcs, which matches the 850 figures. In MAPPA's Final Season, adult Eren is visibly taller than her. With the gap at 7 cm, she reaches about his eyebrows, and that is roughly how the two are framed in their scenes together after the timeskip.

The 2015 live-action films cast model and actress Kiko Mizuhara as Mikasa and changed much of the backstory and setting. An actress's height in a loose adaptation doesn't override the manga's data, so this site doesn't use it. The Japanese voice actor, Yui Ishikawa, and the English voice actor, Trina Nishimura, have both talked about the character's growth over the series, according to interviews cited on Wikipedia. Nishimura described Mikasa becoming sadder more often in the final season, which the story's older, taller, more somber character design also reflects.

Mikasa against the Titans

In a series about giants, every human height is small. Still, the size differences show what Mikasa does in battle. A 3-meter Titan, among the smallest seen in the series, is already about 1.7 times her height. A 15-meter Titan, the size of Eren's Attack Titan or the Armored Titan, is about 8.5 times her height, and the 60-meter Colossal Titan is about 34 times.

The vertical maneuvering equipment closes that gap. A soldier who is 176 cm tall has no hope of reaching a Titan's nape on foot, and the series' fights are built around climbing, swinging and cutting from above. Mikasa's height gives her slightly more reach with the blades than shorter soldiers like Levi or Annie, but in canon the deciding factors are skill and the Ackerman strength, not extra centimeters.

Mikasa among anime heroines

Next to the heroines of other popular series in this site's data, Mikasa is near the top:

Among the manga heroines in the list she is the tallest by 6 cm. Only Wonder Woman, from an American comic tradition that draws its heroines larger, stands above her.

What 176 cm means for a real woman

In real terms, Mikasa is tall. In the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2021–2023, the 95th percentile for US women aged 20 and over is 172.5 cm, so 176 cm is taller than about 97% of American adult women. The height percentile calculator puts her in the same place. Among real people in the site's data, actress Jennifer Lawrence is listed at 175 cm (see her height page), almost exactly Mikasa's adult height.

Compared with Japanese women, the difference is larger. The NCD-RisC estimates on this site put the average Japanese woman born in 1996 at 158.3 cm (see average height in Japan). Mikasa stands about 18 cm above that, roughly the difference between the average Japanese woman and the average Japanese man plus another 6 cm. Even in the tallest population in the dataset, the Netherlands, where women average 168.7 cm, she would be about 7 cm above average.

Common mix-ups about Mikasa's height

Most confusion comes from a single source being quoted out of context:

• "Mikasa is 170 cm." True for 850 only. It is the figure in the original guidebook, and many wikis and character databases never updated it after the Character Encyclopedia FINAL.
• "Mikasa is taller than Eren." She never was, according to the books. She often looks taller in early chapters because Isayama's proportions were rougher and she stands straighter, but the 850 figures are identical.
• "All Ackermans are short like Levi." Mikasa, at 176 cm, is 16 cm taller than Levi. Height doesn't come with the family power in canon.

The official books carry Isayama's profiles, so they take precedence over screenshots and fan measurements.

Spoiler note: this page refers to the Ackerman bloodline and the timeskip but doesn't discuss the ending.