How tall is Goku?

Goku's official height: 175 cm as an adult

Goku, the Saiyan martial artist at the center of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, is listed at 175 cm (5′9″) as an adult. The figure comes from Dragon Ball: Super Exciting Guide, a pair of official databooks Shueisha published in 2009, one covering the story and one covering the characters. The Dragon Ball Wiki cites it for both his height and his weight, and it is the most widely used number for the character.

The same guide gives adult Goku a weight of 62 kg (about 137 lb). That is lighter than many fans expect. At 175 cm and 62 kg, his body mass index is about 20.2, solidly in the lean range. Goku is drawn with broad shoulders and heavy muscle, but the official numbers describe a compact, light fighter rather than a heavyweight.

The guide labels these numbers "adult," which matters because Goku is one of the few manga heroes who visibly grows up during his own series.

Goku's growth: from a short 12-year-old to 175 cm

When Dragon Ball begins, Goku is a small boy with a monkey's tail living alone in the mountains. The Dragon Ball Wiki's summary of his appearance describes how his size changes over the following decade:

This is unusual for a long-running manga. According to Wikipedia's account of the series' creation, Toriyama's editor at first opposed letting Goku grow up, arguing that it was uncommon for a protagonist to change so drastically. Toriyama pushed back, reportedly saying he would not be able to continue the series otherwise, and later explained that he aged Goku up to make the fight scenes easier to draw. A taller, adult body simply gave him more to work with in martial arts choreography.

The payoff comes at the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, when an 18-year-old Goku reappears after years of training. The wiki notes that his friends barely recognize him and identify him mostly by his naive personality and unmistakable hair. Readers who had followed a small boy for years suddenly met a grown man.

The anime-only sequel Dragon Ball Daima reverses the process temporarily: according to Wikipedia, a wish turns Goku and his friends back into children. That shrunken version is a story device, and the 175 cm adult height remains the canonical figure for Goku.

Goku next to the Dragon Ball cast

The table uses heights recorded on this site and in the Dragon Ball Wiki, which draw mainly on the Super Exciting Guide and earlier Daizenshuu guidebooks.

A few patterns jump out:

Goku is not especially tall. Among the Earth fighters, Yamcha, Tien and even Mr. Satan stand above him. The wiki's note that he became "similar in height to his taller human allies" by 24 is accurate, but he never outgrew them.

Size does not equal power. Goku's greatest enemy, Frieza, is listed at 158 cm in his final form, 17 cm shorter than Goku. Cell and Broly are much taller, but the series consistently decides fights by power level rather than size.

His closest relationships cover a wide range. His best friend Krillin is 22 cm shorter; his rival Piccolo is 51 cm taller. His son Gohan is effectively the same height, and his wife Chi-Chi is 12 cm shorter.

Goku and Vegeta: an 11 cm rivalry

The Saiyan rivalry that drives much of Dragon Ball Z and Super comes with a clear size difference. Vegeta is listed at 164 cm in the Super Exciting Guide, 11 cm below Goku. The Dragon Ball Wiki illustrates this with a design sheet by Toriyama showing the two side by side in their Super Saiyan Blue forms, where the height difference is obvious.

In everyday terms, 11 cm is about the length of a smartphone. It is enough that Vegeta's tall, flame-shaped hair is needed to bring him close to Goku's eye level in many scenes.

Goku's family by height

Goku's adoptive grandfather, Grandpa Gohan, is listed at 160 cm. Chi-Chi's father, the Ox-King, is listed by the wiki as over 4 m, which makes him the giant of the family by a huge margin. Chi-Chi herself was 156 cm as a child and is 163 cm as an adult. Goku's younger son, Goten, is listed only as a child, at 123 cm.

How Goku's design shapes his height

Toriyama based Goku on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King of the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, and early inspiration also came from Hong Kong martial arts films starring Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. According to Wikipedia, Toriyama even said he had a young Jackie Chan in mind if Goku were ever played in live action. That background helps explain Goku's proportions: a nimble, compact martial artist rather than a towering strongman.

Several design elements change how tall Goku looks without changing his official height:

• His hair. Goku's spiky black hair stands up at the front with four or five spikes. In Super Saiyan forms it rises further, and Super Saiyan 3 adds a mane that reaches down his back. None of this is counted in his 175 cm.
• The tail. As a child, his tail made him look like a little monkey boy. Wikipedia notes that Toriyama found the tail a pain to draw, which is one reason it was cut off early.
• Clothing. His orange-and-blue gi and wristbands are deliberately simple, a choice Toriyama made because it was a fighting manga. Loose training clothes hide his build, which helps explain why the 62 kg figure surprises people.

Reading Goku's numbers carefully

Goku's 175 cm is simple to quote, but a few details are easy to get wrong when comparing him with other characters.

• It is an adult figure. The Super Exciting Guide labels both his height and weight as "adult." Kid Goku from the original Dragon Ball, the child versions in Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Daima, and the teenage Goku of the 21st and 22nd tournaments are all much shorter, and the guide does not give them separate numbers.
• Measure to the scalp, not the spikes. His hair adds height in every form and a great deal in Super Saiyan 3. Fan charts that measure to the tip of the hair will overstate him by a wide margin.
• Transformations do not change the official height. No guide gives a separate height for Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan God or Ultra Instinct Goku. The giant Great Ape form he could take as a child, before his tail was permanently removed by Kami, is a different matter entirely and has no figure in the sources used here.
• The weight is light for a reason. The 62 kg figure comes from the same 2009 guide. It may look low against his drawings, but it is the official number and fits his origins as a nimble, compact martial artist.

Keeping those points in mind avoids the two most common mistakes: treating Goku as a towering figure because of his hair and muscles, and comparing his adult height with the childhood heights of other characters.

What 175 cm means in real-world terms

Converted, 175 cm is 68.9 inches, or just under 5′9″. You can see the full conversion and real people at that mark on the 175 cm page.

The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, whose national averages this site uses, estimates that adult Japanese men born in 1996 average about 170.8 cm. Goku is about 4 cm taller than that, so he would read as a little above average on a Tokyo street. Against the US male average of 177.1 cm, he would be about 2 cm shorter than the typical American man. The average height in Japan page shows how Japanese heights rose through the 20th century, including the decades when Dragon Ball was first serialized.

Among well-known real people, Jennifer Lawrence is listed at exactly 175 cm on this site, so she and Goku would stand eye to eye. Tom Cruise, listed at 170 cm, would be 5 cm shorter, roughly the gap between Goku and Future Trunks.

Comparing Goku yourself

The height comparison tool lets you put Goku beside Vegeta, Piccolo, Krillin or anyone else in the catalog at true scale. For exact gaps, the height difference calculator works with any two heights. Comparisons worth trying:

• Goku vs Vegeta: 11 cm between the two Saiyan rivals.
• Goku vs Piccolo: 51 cm, the largest gap in the main cast.
• Goku vs Frieza: the hero is 17 cm taller than the tyrant.
• Goku vs Gohan: a 1 cm difference between father and son.