Cutesy Dwarf

Two-foot geezers aside, body proportion in anime can venture to the realm of the odd. One situation where this is obvious is with any post-pubescent person who is unusually short. For example, a dwarf has different proportions to people of average height but will still be identifiable as being a certain age.

However, perhaps due to the nature of cute designs, most artists will simply draw the character physically as a child. This also allows for any humor related to that, rather than specifically related to height.

See also Really Seven Hundred Years Old and Older Than They Look.

Can often be truth in television, as the examples on Older Than They Look will attest.

Not related to those kind of attractive dwarves.

Examples of Cutesy Dwarf include:

Anime and Manga

• The 27-year-old Mika-sensei in Sensei no Ojikan.
• Washuu in Tenchi Muyo! is sometimes confused for a child, although certain features of her body stay adult-sized. (Then again, she's chosen that body shape, and can assume a normal adult-sized form at will.)
• Despite being 18 years old, Hagu in Honey and Clover is inexplicably drawn as if she was a little kid for reasons never explained or brought up by the characters.
  • Never brought up? Hagu is (for at least the first part of the series) perpetually chased by Morito with designs of photographing her in cute outfits (such as forcing her to dress up as a mouse), to the end of putting them on a Web site which people pay for.
  • I don't believe the reasons are ever brought up: She's basically an 8-year-old with a '1' in front of her age and this is just considered cute.
• The wizard Clef in Magic Knight Rayearth.
• Komoe-sensei, Touma's homeroom teacher in To Aru Majutsu no Index. Characters have expressed curiosity about her diminutive stature but no answer has been forthcoming.
• Ymir from Queen's Blade is a literal dwarf who appears as a little girl.
• Yugi Mutou of Yu-Gi-Oh! is sixteen years old and five feet tall. In the manga he's mistaken for a grade-schooler at least once, and teased by an actual grade-schooler for not looking his age.
• Yutaka of Lucky Star was assumed by some of her classmates to be this, for being a 1.38m tall Nice Girl sweet girl. She however don't appear to like this kind of view as she knows Not Growing Up Sucks.

Comic Books

• One issue of the new The Muppet Show comics features what appears to be a baby abandoned on the doorstep of Muppet Theater, who spends the issue performing highly un-baby-like stunts. He turns out to be "Babyface Magoo: Midget Acrobat", the act that supposedly failed to show. His refusal to speak up until the reveal was because he'd been clobbered earlier and hadn't got all his marbles sorted out.

Literature

• In the Myth Adventures novels, mature members of the race of Cupys resemble adorable little human toddlers. In Little Myth Marker, Markie (aka "the Ax") regularly uses this resemblence in a Batman Gambit to infiltrate the social circles of her targets for character assassination.

Video Games

• The historical druid Asphodel in Rift (who actually was a dwarf) was canonically mistaken for a little girl at least once. Which can probably be attributed partly to her being a Genki Girl, partly to the fact that Rift dwarf chicks are tiny, compact, and big-eyed.

Web Comics

• Slick from the webcomic Sinfest. Nobody actually knows how old he is, but one thing is for certain: He's really, really short.
• The eponymous character of Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name is 5'3", looks 14, and is 24. (See here.) He occasionally is drawn to look like a short, skinny adult, which is what he is, and Eating the Eye Candy in the comments section ensues. He does have sideburns and broad shoulders, but he also has big, round eyes, as seen panel 2 here, often looks far too adorable to be an adult, and often wears clothing too large for him.