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Midgemoose
Cquote1

It's a sad and awful story and the shorter folks won't care,

I'm a man who's simply way too big to love.

Picture her a tiny thing with tiny ribbons in her hair,

Picture me a monster towering above.
Jonathan Coulton, "Just as Long as Me"
Cquote2


Some writers like pairing up characters of opposite sex and opposite ends of the size spectrum. The height difference goes well beyond One Head Taller, and the tall one is often several times wider to boot.

Averted more often than not in Film and Live Action TV, where props and camera angles are employed to equalize the heights of the leading man and lady, to make filming easier (otherwise, getting them in the same shot would be a pain in the arse). Even when the actors themselves represent this trope, if it appears on screen you can be sure there was an intentional choice to invoke it.

Usually, it's the man who's bigger. This is an exaggeration with some basis in truth: the median height for males is slightly higher than that for females, and many men and women choose opposite-sex mates with the "traditional" comparative height. Physical attraction aside, the idea of a big hulking giant showing his soft side for his little lady is popular with female viewers.

This isn't always sexual though; often the girl is a Morality Pet who hangs out with the guy to show he isn't just a brute. Or it could just be an Intergenerational Friendship. Also, frequently the Huge Guy is the Tiny Girl's relative, usually her father or brother (which provides an interesting dynamic when she's the older one).

Note well: In an action series, the guy may look big enough to break his girl like a toothpick, but she's likely to be just as deadly as her man.

Before adding examples, remember that both the man must be above average height and the woman must be below it. If it's only one or the other (usually a very short woman paired with an average-sized man), that would be One Head Taller. May overlap with Beast and Beauty, Ugly Guy, Hot Wife, or Hot Amazon. See also Hot Skitty-On-Wailord Action, nudge nudge wink wink. Can edge into Squick territory in some of the more extreme examples. Compare Big Guy, Little Guy.

The inversion of this, which is rather more common in fiction than in real life, is Tiny Guy, Huge Girl.

Examples of Huge Guy, Tiny Girl include:


Anime & Manga[]

  • Narumi and Shirogane of Karakuri Circus; while Shirogane is pretty average, Narumi is an enormous kempoist.
  • Van and Wendy in Gun X Sword. Van and Priscilla also count.
  • Shante and Goru of Koukaku no Regios, sort of the Beta Couple of the show.
  • Inverted in a Mazinger Z spin-off. Major Kabuto is human-sized. Princess Krishna is Mazinger-sized (around eighteen-meters tall). He -understandably- complains she is the most beautiful woman he has found, but they are the wrong size.
  • Benta and Obu from Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix.
  • Isaku and Doa in Blade of the Immortal. Also, to a less extreme degree, Manji and Rin.
  • Blame: Cibo and Killy, after Cibo's body is destroyed and she ends up occupying a new, much smaller one.
  • Yaoi example: Kanou and Ayase from Okane ga Nai.
  • In Eat Man, protagonists Bolt's average Girl of the Week's head hovers somewhere around his chest, and only has a third of his shoulder width. With his Badass Longcoat on, you'd probably never notice most of them if they standing behind him.
  • Izumi Curtis and her husband Sieg in Fullmetal Alchemist (former page picture). Izumi is a normal-sized woman. Sieg is easily in the running for "largest person in the show".
    • Interestingly enough, while Sieg Curtis is as strong as an ox, his comparatively small wife is considerably more dangerous.
    • Scar and Mei. Scar is more like Aloof Big Brother, though.
    • Of the more shippy variant is Al and Mei, due to Al's current bound-to-a-frickin-huge-suit-of-armor form. And — before the inevitable comments — Al is only 14 and not that much older than Mei, and he's also never technically been through puberty since he spent his teenhood so far outside of his physical body and in a suit of armor.
  • Non-romantic (And perhaps all-too literal) example: Zest and Agito in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Zest and Lutecia, as well, but they don't hang out together as much. This may be a Shout-Out to Zanger Zonvolt and Irui from Super Robot Wars, as there are quite a few other references in the Nanoha series.
    • A more romantic example comes from Erio and Caro. In the Sound Stages, Caro was complaining about Erio "stealing her height" and he was saying he wasn't. Cut four years to Vi Vid and Lutecia teases Caro about being a midget and Caro saying that she grew 1.5 cm while she barely comes up to Erio's shoulder. Cut two years later to Force and Caro only comes up to Erio's chest. Hayate may start having competition for the shortest fully grown female in the series soon.
  • Pumpkin Scissors, anyone?
  • Mikuru and Itsuki might be taken as this in the SOS film made by Haruhi Suzumiya.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho: Toguro and Genkai, before they became enemies.
  • Matia and Managa, the police officers, in Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica.
  • Ichigo (174 cm 5'8.5") and Rukia (144 cm 4'8 3/4") in Bleach — according to the author and the end of the manga, they're a non-romantic example.
    • This trope would've been taken to an extreme had certain elements of the original pilot chapter been kept--such as Rukia's loss of power making her small enough to fit in Ichigo's pocket and bathe in a teacup.
    • The same could be said for the interaction with Renji (188 cm 6'2") and Rukia. Alias the actual romantic example for her.
      • There's Kisuke (183 cm 6') and his friend Yoruichi (156 cm 5'1").
    • Kenpachi (202 cm 6'7.5") is perhaps the most masculine character in the series, being a very strong and physically imposing man who is ridiculously obsessed with the adrenaline rush of battle. Meanwhile, his adoptive daughter Yachiru (109 cm 3'7") is a (seemingly) sweet little girl no more than (an apparent) five or six years old who rides around on Kenpachi's back. However there are hints throughout the series indicating Yachiru might actually be the more frightening and dangerous of the two, and where Kenpachi is concerned, that's saying a lot.
      • The size difference is also frequently exaggerated for dramatic (or humorous) effect.
    • There's much more where that came from. Division 2 has Soi Fon (150 cm 4'11") and Omaeda Marechiyo (210 cm 6'11"), the "little girl" being infinitely more dangerous; and Squad 5's Aizen Sousuke (186 cm 6'1") and Hinamori Momo (151 cm 4'11"), also big difference and this is one is Shipping.
    • Kensei and Mashiro also could qualify- Kensei is (179 cm 5'10.5") and Mashiro is only (153 cm 5'0") Doesn't stop either of them from kicking serious ass, though.
      • And if we go by the filler arc, this played straight with the Zanpakutou spirits of Hitsugaya and Hinamori: Tobiume is the Token Mini-Moe, while Hyourinmaru towers her and is quite muscular.
    • Also, Ichigo and Nel Tu, at least when Nel is in her child form. Like Yachiru with Kenpachi, she tends to ride on Ichigo's shoulder.
    • Orihime Inoue is 157 cm (5'2") tall, so she has these dynamics with either her eventual husband Ichigo (who carries her on his shoulder once) or her Platonic Life Partner Chad (197 cm, 6'5"). Subverted with Ishida, since he's 171 cm (5'7") tall, but since he's drawn shorter and slimmer than both Ichigo and Chad he doesn't exactly evoke the trope with her.
  • Lord Genome from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and... pretty much any member of his harem.
  • Yukio and Ginji aka "Jumbo" from Black Lagoon.
  • Shiryuu Kusanagi and Yuzuriha Nekoi in X 1999. Non-romantic example: Fuuma Monou and his Ill Girl of a younger sister, Kotori.
  • In Berserk, naturally badass Guts towers high over his lover Casca. Yet, she is not afraid to scold him or even slap him hard across the face when needed, at least before the Eclipse.
    • Griffith is noticeably bigger than the Midland princess Charlotte.
  • Kazuya Kujo (174 cm 5'8.5) and Victorique de Blois (152.4 cm 5'0) from Gosick
    • Their voice actors/actresses make an even better example. Takuya Eguchi (188cm 6' 2) and Aoi Yuuki (145cm 4' 9)
  • Non-romantic example: From Fate/stay night, Ilyasviel "Ilya" von Einzbern and her enormous Servant, Berserker. Also, according to time-skip epilogues and using Archer as obvious evidence, at his adult height, Shirou will tower over the main heroines, especially Saber (who's the shortest Servant by a full head at least).
    • Archer and Rin works with this as well, for he's about a foot (30cm) taller than she is and 68 lb. (31 kg) heavier.
      • Some of the illustrations seem to put Archer WAY over a foot (30cm) higher than Rin. [1]. She isn't even up to his shoulders here. He's easily in the roughly six and a half foot (200cm) height range.
    • Bypassing gender, we've also got Fate/Zero's Odd Couple Alexander the Great and Waver Velvet stretching this about as far as adult human proportions can go, with Alex having about two feet (55 cm, to be exact) and 80 kg (176 lbs.) on Waver.
  • Riful and Dauf in Claymore, he being a large, mostly unintelligent brute and she being a tiny girl, most noticeable when he's in his Awakened form and she's perched in human form on his shoulder. They also have a pastime of torturing people to make them Awaken.
    • Of course, this is inverted when Riful bothers to take her Awakened Form.
    • Raki and Priscilla.
  • In Hiyokoi, the main character, Nishiyama Hiyori is only 140 centimeters (4'7 ft.), while her love interest, Hirose Yuushin, is 190 centimeters (6'2 ft.)
  • Houshin Engi has Kou Hikou and his wife Kashi.
  • Magic Knight Rayearth: Hikaru only comes up to Lantis's waist, but then CLAMP has always been a bit silly about proportions.
    • There's also Lafarga and his girlfriend Caldina (though in the anime this got downgraded to One Head Taller). And you can't forget Zagato and Princess Emeraude...
      • Absurdly tall and thickly built (yet still Bishonen?) male characters seem to be fairly common in works by CLAMP overall. You could probably fill a quarter of this page with examples.
  • Paprika: Dr. Chiba and Tokita.
  • An anime-specific way to invoke this trope is to put the guy inside a Humongous Mecha and let the girl just... follow it around. Bonus points if she is armed with a gun twice her size.
    • Yoko and first Kamina's, then Simon's Gurren-Lagann in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. She even comes complete with a Railgun.
    • Emperor Dornkirk invokes an image of Van's Escaflowne being guided by Hitomi's prophetic abilities to take over the world in one of his visions. This doesn't happen so explicitly but that's pretty much what happens throughout the series.
      • And for a straight up example instead of the Giant Robot variant, we have Hitomi (160 cm, or approximately 5'3") and Allen (185 cm, or about 6'1")
    • Similarly, Hayase and Hikaru get to pull this off near the end of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which Hikaru piloting (obviously).
    • Various Gundam entries did this a lot more than once. I.e: Kamille, his Gundam and Kamille's partner Fa in Zeta Gundam.
    • Try a small girl and a emo sentient Humongous Mecha. The mecha is Starscream, for crying out loud.
    • Full Metal Panic has one instance when Sousuke was piloting the Arbalest while carrying Kaname in one hand and Kurz in the other. She was rather enjoying herself until he suddenly threw her into the air to free up one arm for attacking then catch her on the way down. Needless to say, she didn't appreciate it.
  • While Deunan in Appleseed is actually rather tall compared to most women and quite strong, Briareos can only be described as huge. Next to him Deunan does look rather tiny. They also venture into the Beast and Beauty territory thanks to Briareos being a full-body cyborg.
    • In the second movie, this seems to be less overt and seems a little closer to the One Head Taller region. Of course he's still significantly buffer than Deunan, so it probably still counts.
  • Marcus and Mission Control Anya are implied to have this festering. Though like in the Resident Evil example, it has more to do with bulk than height.
  • Oldboy: At least in the manga version, protagonist Shinichi Goto and his girlfriend Eri. He's significantly taller and more heavily built. Her habit of hanging onto his side emphasizes the size difference.
  • Konata's parents in Lucky Star, since her mother Kanata was Older Than She Looked by a wide margin, and her dad Soujirou is kind of a Lolicon.
  • Non-romantic: Chichi and her father, the aptly named "Ox King", from Dragon Ball. To a lesser extent, her son and his wife: Videl just barely reaches Gohan's chest.
    • Most likely the Ox King and his wife as well since there's no way someone like Chichi could had been conceived if her mother wasn't her size.
  • Lum's parents in Urusei Yatsura.
  • In Trigun, Vash is almost a foot taller than Meryl and has to really bow down when he wants to hug her, especially in the manga.
  • Non-romantic (?) example: Beyond the Grave and Mika, from Gungrave.
Cquote1

 Grave: This girl... to protect this girl... That is what Millenion means to me. It is my way of life.

Cquote2
  • Michel Blanc and Kuran Kuran (often a full-sized Zentraedi) from Macross Frontier. That is, if Kuran isn't Micloned. If she does, the trope is played straight instead, as she looks much smaller and younger than her real age.
  • An example with two males: Jin Akutsu and Taichi Dan from The Prince of Tennis. There's also Miyuki Chitose and either her older brother Senri or "thief-bro" Tezuka, as well as Munehiro Kabaji and his (unnamed) older sister...
  • Chrono Crusade: Rosette and Chrono don't look like this at first, and might even look like an inversion, but the cute little boy thing is just his Sleep Mode Size — In his real form, Chrono completely towers over the girl.
  • In Rurouni Kenshin, Genki Girl Misao Makimachi is much smaller than The Stoic Aoshi Shinomori.
  • After the 18" (46cm) tall Cologne and the ten-year-old Hinako, girl Ranma from Ranma ½ is the smallest female in the cast, and "she" is often pursued by Tatewaki Kunō, the tallest male (tall even by Western standards).
  • Inu-Yasha's older half-brother Sesshomaru sort of acquired (or adopted) Rin, an eight-year-old girl. Sesshomaru's humanoid form looks nineteen. (His true form is... much larger.)
    • Inu-Yasha's mother and father. He visits his father's grave and enters his father's remains and has room in his chest to both move around and fight his brother. We see his mother in a flashback and she was a normal-sized human lady.
  • In Ikki Tousen we have Gentle Giant Kanshou and Cute Bruiser Chouhi (which can go either platonic or romantic). Also, The Vamp Kaku and her Genius Bruiser lover Kakuka (he seems to be the only one of Kaku's boyfriends whom she cared for, as seen in his death scene in Dragon Destiny). In a purely platonic sense, the other Gentle Giant Gakushuu and either Idiot Heroine Hakufu or Tsundere Ryoumou.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia has some variations. Sweden and Finland are both men, with Sweden being much taller (at least by 4.7" (12 cm), according to Finland in one strip). This applies to Germany and North Italy as well, with the latter having difficulty even hugging the former.
    • The most blatant example is England and America. Both Fanon dōjinshi and canon (in the strips) greatly exaggerate their already existing height difference; technically, America is just .75" (2 cm) taller, but England is drawn much shorter than he truly is (he and France are around the same height, according to the charts, but France is drawn taller). This is sort of Justified Trope when one thinks about just how much bigger the US is than the UK...
      • The fanart for America and England is absurd. America looks about eight inches taller than England. To think England is the 'big brother'.
    • We also have Russia and China. See this and this.
    • South Korea, as the tallest of the Asians (apparently tall enough to stand eye-to-eye with America), has these dynamics with almost everyone in the group. China is the biggest example but there's also Taiwan and Hong Kong (sometimes).
  • Ryuuji, the hero of Toradora!, is about average-sized; it's the heroine Taiga that's short. Played up for laughs in the first chapters of the manga, but eventually moves on to the One Head Taller range. She also puts the Tsun in Tsundere — the school is terrified of her, and calls her "The Palmtop Tiger".
  • Ditto with Oka and her boyfriend from Mysterious Girlfriend X.
  • Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev, at 5' (153 cm) and 6'3" (190 cm). There's official art of her sitting on his shoulder like a parrot.
    • Also, while Zelgadis is very slender and only about 5'7" (170 cm), he looks much taller when paired with 4'9" (145 cm) Amelia.
      • Amelia grows a bit through the seasons, though, which makes sense when you consider her family particularly her EXTREMELY tall and buxom older sister, Gracia/Naga.
  • The main couple of Midori Days would have counted even before she became his right hand. Yes, we mean that last bit literally; and no, we're not making that up.
  • If one reads the manga version of Star Ocean the Second Story, they might get this impression of Ashton and Precis, as in some pages, Ashton appears to be twice Precis's height]. In actuality, it's not QUITE a huge difference. According to official records, Ashton is 5'10" (180 cm), while Precis is about 5'1" (155 cm), meaning there's only a 16% difference in height (of course, that still makes Precis fit the tiny girl part of the equation, so they might still be considered as qualified for this trope).
    • Hell, Precis looks SO young that Ashton was earlier accused of being a Lolicon when he expressed an interest in her. She later states that she's 16 (Ashton is 20), so depending on your stance on the legal age limit, he might actually be one.
  • Mamoru and Haruka from Until Death Do Us Part. She's like only up to his stomach. Or course she's still a kid.
  • Chiaki and Makoto in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time -she barely goes up to his shoulders.
  • Koushi Inuzuka of Sumomomo Momomo is normal sized, but Momoko herself is tiny enough to compensate.
  • Haruhi and everyone in the Host Club in Ouran High School Host Club. Haruhi is short, but not obscenely so...but the boys around her are obscenely tall, save for Honey-sempai, so they tend to dwarf her a lot.
    • Actually, the male Hosts are only a little above the average male height in Japan, which is 170 cm (~5'7"). Haruhi herself is 155cm (~5'1"), which is a pretty normal height for a girl. Hikaru and Kaoru are 178cm (~5'8"), Kyouya is 181cm (~5'9"), and Tamaki is 183cm (~6') — he is on the taller end of the scale, but he's also half-French which may have something to do with it. Mori, being the Gentle Giant stands at 192cm (~6'3"), which is certainly tall, but not horribly uncommon. Little Honey is a mere 148cm (~4'8 1/2") which is odd for an 18-year-old male... but hey it's a manga/anime. Maybe he'll hit a growth spurt in college.
  • Fushigi Yuugi also has an example. Yui Hongou and her chief Seiryuu Seishi-slash-confidante, Nakago, are at least ten inches apart.
    • So are Miaka and Tamahome, but it's not as obvious.
    • In a non-romantic subversion (not that the first example was romantic anyway), Miaka is only three or four inches taller than Chiriko, but he's only shown to be up to her waist.
  • Sakura's parents in Code Breaker. Dad is a normal/tallish katana-wielding retired badass ill guy, mom is a tiny Moe Blob who loves costumes. Oh, and Sakura's adopted, so who knows if they're actually married.
  • Sojiro and Tarlotte in Shattered Angels.
  • Code Geass: Li Xingke (24) and Empress Tianzi (13). This was a romantic relationship, at least for Tianzi. She was even about to be married to Prince Odysseus who looks to at least be in his thirties until Zero stopped the marriage ceremony.
    • How about Kaguya (14) who engaged herself to Lelouch (17)?
  • Yuty and Karkinos in Heroic Age.
  • Koganei Hana, a girl who looks no older than five, and Edile the Glutton, a Karakuri Douji the size of a building, in Ultimo.
  • Jet and his (former) love interest Alisa, in Cowboy Bebop.
  • Moon Phase has a few examples: Balgus (Vargus) and Arte are one. The little twins Hikaru and Kouru are engaged to Kouhei and Seiji.
  • When Ooshima is shown standing face to face (or... stomach to face...) with his girlfriend Misaki in the Emerging manga, it is clear to the reader that he is almost exactly twice her height.
  • Black Butler has Ciel and Sebastian, and while not a canon romantic couple (sorry YaoiFangirls!), Sebastian towers over Ciel. However, Ciel is only 13 so who knows how tall he'll eventually grow to be. On a random note, Agni seems to be the tallest of the cast so far.
  • Basquash has Sela and Navi. While Sela is normal sized, Navi is a literal Giant who's as big as the Bigfoot mecha.
  • Non-Romantic example: Hellsing's Alucard is far taller than Seras Victoria.
    • Romantic example with Pip and Seras at least in the OAV, where he (and the other wild Geese mercs) is drawn significantly taller than Seras.
  • Another non-romantic example in GaoGaiGar: Mamoru is a short 9-year-old who barely comes up to Gai's waist (and that's because of his hair). See also Volfogg, a Transforming Mecha who protects Mamoru as one of his primary duties, and Mike Sounders the 13th, who is probably the closest to Mamoru after Gai.
  • Sunako's parents in Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge.
  • From the picture of them that we see, Joey Jones' parents in Heroman, it's kinda like looking at Heroman and Joey side-by-side. And if you think it applies, this also goes for Heroman and Joey.
  • Dance in the Vampire Bund presents Akira Kaburagi, a taller-than-average 17 year old high school senior, and Mina Tepes, who looks like she belongs in the sixth grade (at best) and is about chest high to him.
  • Nanatsuiro Drops has tall Haru and short Sumomo.
  • Eyeshield 21 takes this with Komusubi's parents.
  • Durarara has a platonic example: In later novels, Shizuo winds up befriending a 10-year-old Yakuza Princess named Akane. Given a charitable estimate, Akane probably grazes four feet (122 cm). In contrast, Shizuo is 6'1" (185 cm). Side-by-side, she reaches only up to his waist.
  • S.S. Astro has a platonic example where a small girl and a rather large colleague are participating in a three-legged race at the sports festival. It's not really a fair race when the guy can simply pick up the girl and run off with her.
Cquote1

 Izumi: Umm... do you think we should switch them with someone else? It looks like he's kidnapping her...

Yuko: Personally, I love the combination.

Cquote2
  • Another non-romantic example can be found in Solty Rei. Roy is 197 cm (about 6'7") and muscular, while Solty is 153 cm (about 5'1") and slender.
  • Naomi Armitage and Ross Syllabus in the Armitage Movies.
  • Koi Kaze 's Koshiro and Nanoka.
  • Waaaay late into Tokyo Crazy Paradise, Asago and Munakata are this.
  • Zaitsu Misao and Arihara Ayumi of Hatsukoi Limited. Ironically, though he's three times larger than her, Ayumi can still knock Misao out with just one high kick.
  • Yamato from Karakuridouji Ultimo absolutely towers over his love interest Sayama, despite her still being a fairly average height. Then again, there's really only Akitsu, that Yamato doesn't tower over, so he would be an example of this no matter who it was, or what kind of relationship he had.
  • Brigadoon Marin and Melan gives us Melan Blue, a robot a little taller than (most) human beings, and Marin, a young teenager who seems to be short for her age.
  • In One Piece the late Mermaid Queen Otohime was a human-sized mermaid who was noted to be incredibly fragile. Her husband King Neptune is a giant merman. Their daughter the Mermaid Princess takes after her mother in looks but takes after her father in size. The fact that the Mermaid Queen was able to survive giving birth to a giant isn't the weirdest thing in One Piece says all that needs to be said about the series. Mainly that it is awesome.
    • As a mermaid, it's possible she might lay eggs. It's never specified.
  • Eas/Setsuna and Westar/Hayato of Fresh Pretty Cure. The exact nature of their relationship is up for debate, but they do have a strong connection to one another either way.
  • An extreme example occurs in Choujin Gakuen, where the male lead, Adam Shinjou, is about six feet tall, and the female lead, Oska L. Duke is... two feet tall. Ironically, Oska is the older of the two, by a wide margin. She's also much stronger than he is.
  • Like many other tropes taken to ridiculous extremes in Sacred Seven with Alma (195cm) and Ruri (144cm).
  • Slam Dunk: Pretty much any important male character (except Miyagi) when paired with any of the few female characters in the show. It's completely justified though since they're all basketball players, so most of them are 6ft or over.
  • In the original Astro Boy manga's World's Greatest Robot story arc, the developing relationship between Astro Boy's younger sister Uran and the giant robot Pluto. Uran helped turn Pluto from a Proud Warrior Race Guy Blood Knight into someone genuinely trying to find something in life more than just fighting. Too bad it was a Kill'Em All story.
  • In Daily Lives of High School Boys, Motoharu is One Head Taller than his older sister. This, however, does not prevent the latter from bully him once a while.
  • The anime canon of Persona 4: The Animation has Kanji and his interest in Naoto. Yosuke and Narukami are roughly the same height, and the same can be said of Chie, Rise and Yukiko (who are about a head shorter than the first two). Meanwhile Kanji tends to be drawn roughly one to one and a half heads taller than Narukami and Yosuke, while Naoto is about a head to a head and a half shorter than the rest of the female cast... while wearing platformed boots.
  • Blue Comet SPT Layzner has Eiji Asuka/Albatro Null and his Love Interest Anna Stephanie. Eiji is tall-ish but not to the extreme, but Anna is so tiny that he at times has difficulties even hugging her.
    • Eiji's older sister Julia Asuka/Albatro Mille is actually quite tall, but her opponent Prince Ru-Kaine is massive.
  • Platonic example in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Shinobu Kocho (155 cms) and her Big Brother Mentor Gyomei Himejima (220 cms!)

Comics[]

  • DC Comics:
    • Superman and Lois Lane.
    • The Joker and Harley Quinn — although Joker is sometimes described as only 6' tall he's more often 6'3" or 6'4" and drawn in a particularly lanky fashion, while Harley (a former gymnast) barely comes up to his shoulders.
    • Batman and Catwoman could qualify. A splash page from the Hush story arc comes to mind. The Bat is about 6ft4", Selina is 5ft7".
  • Marvel Comics:
    • Colossus and Kitty Pryde when they're romantically involved.
    • Well before these Johnny-come-latelies, the original dimorphic superhero couple: Giant-Man and the Wasp, which got taken over to non-combat situations for awhile when Giant-Man got stuck at around twelve feet tall, and Wasp was still her usual 5'4".
    • The Thing and Alicia Masters; it doesn't help that Alicia is also blind. This was even joked about in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer when Johnny asks how Ben and Alicia manage a sex life. He then explains that he's only asking out of concern that Alicia might one day be killed in a "rock slide" and runs as Ben comes after him.
      • Considering he weighs over 500 lbs, here's hoping he doesn't roll in his sleep.
        • It's hinted, several times, that the Thing has no... ehm... external organs, because the rock skin is actually an exoskeleton of some sort. Obviously different authors said differently, but the Thing never got a "giant penis" joke, while other "big guys" (like the Hulk), had.
    • The Incredible Hulk. Oh, the Hulk, even his Hot Amazon cousin She Hulk is only chest height to him. Some artist's renditions of the Hulk are literally capable, and actually have held love interests clasped between his hands.
      • Part of the problem with the Hulk is that his size is incredibly inconsistent, to the point where it'll vary between panels on the same page. His third wife, Caiera, was a hot amazon with similar proportions to his cousin. Some panels had them standing next to each other with only a few inches difference in height, while others have him absolutely dwarfing her. The Hulk's official height is (I believe) less than eight feet tall, however some panels will have him pushing fifteen feet for dramatic effect.
        • This is not so much artist variation as an effect of his powers, part of his ability to get stronger as he gets madder is an increase in size, up to a maximum of twelve feet.
        • The size changing thing is a Hand Wave that may or may not be used Depending on the Writer. Most writers have his size remain consistent, though the artwork usually won't reflect this for dramatic purposes. This is why the Hulk won't always just get bigger as he gets angrier, he'll vary in either direction from one panel to another(even if they show the same moment in time or are separated by a matter of seconds).
    • Ultimate Hulk is worse. He actually does stand somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty feet tall. At one point he had a harem of several dozen normal sized women.
  • In Runaways, Chase appears to be at least a foot taller than his girlfriend, Gert.
  • Pictured above: Marmaduke aka Moose and his girlfriend Midge from Archie Comics.
  • The Italian underground comic book Ranxerox is an example: the titular Ranx is a huge robot (one can describe him as a punk Frankenstein's monster) that, because of a malfunction of his electronic brain, loves and follows little Lubna, who is a young, petite, and very nasty Little Miss Badass.
  • The Maxx has the semi-platonic versions, with the Maxx and Julie, the Maxx and Sarah, Sarah and her Maxx.
  • Although Ragamuffin from Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl is trapped in a small doll for the most part of the comics, when he is turned into his old vampire self the difference in height between him and Lenore is really noticeable. While they're not a romantic couple, their age difference is pretty disturbing, too, Lenore being 10 years old (and dead for 100 years) and Ragamuffin between 20-30 years old (for 400 years).
  • Barbaric and Ricochet in The Savage Dragon and Freak Force; Barbaric is of a Hulk-like stature, while Ricochet is rather small for her age.
  • Common in Elf Quest (Dewshine/Tyldak, Rayek/Winnowill) due to major height disparities between different generations of elf.
    • Rayek/Winnowill is an example of Huge Girl Tiny Guy, but yeah.
  • Lex and Damion in Gloomcookie.
  • Gene and Leezee Sower in Kingdom are a bodyguard-and-Protectorate example.
  • Dwight and Miho from Sin City is a platonic example. Dwight clears six feet while Miho is often described as being barely five feet tall. As the series progressed, Frank Miller decided to exaggerate the differences to the point where Dwight looks as if he could swallow Miho.
  • Another platonic example (and a very unusual one) is Tiatkin and the war droid Giza from the Star Wars oneshot comic Lando's Commandos: On Eagle's Wings. Giza was at least three times his Twi'lek partner's size and also had rather a lot of affection for her. Cue Roaring Rampage of Revenge when she was gunned down during a mission.
  • Pretty much any male not named Yuta in Street Fighter Legends: Ibuki is this in comparison to the titular heroine. One scene had Ibuki help her master (and adoptive father) by supporting his weight over her shoulder which looked odd as he was huge and bulky while she was slender and tiny.


Fan Works[]

  • Does the squick-rich D&D Fanfic Lidda and the Ogre get a place here?
  • Though not canon in any sense, Bionicle fans tend to pair up Toa Hewkii and Macku. Macku is a three foot tall fisherwoman, Hewkii is a seven foot tall super hero with stone and gravity powers.
    • A more canon example would be Mata Nui and Kiina. Sure, at seven feet tall, Kiina is hardly "tiny" by most people's standards, but when you consider that Mata Nui's original form is forty million feet tall, it becomes a highly exaggerated version of this trope.
  • ToyHammer: Michael and Zara. 6' something to 2" (yep, inches).
  • Mario Kart fic Firefly has the non-romantic pair of Bowser, an über-tall heavyweight racer, and Toadette, whose growth was stunted artificially to minimize her weight. Their tastes in fashion further heighten the difference.
  • Like the Bionicle example above, this is not canon, but a lot of Nine fic-writers like pairing the enormous 8 with 4, who is one of the smallest characters. (Most writers like to think of 4 as a female, thus making it an example of this trope and not Big Guy, Little Guy.)
  • In the Firefly fandom, the Jayne/River pairing definitely fits this dynamic, with Jayne's actor Adam Baldwin standing 6'4" and Summer Glau, River's actress, being 5'8". Then again, Jayne tends to make most of the women of Serenity look tiny by comparison (the main exception being Zoe, whose actress Gina Torres stands 5'10"), with the "Jaylee" pairing being even more of a Huge Guy, Tiny Girl pairing than Jayne/River, considering that Jewel Staite, Kaylee's actress, stands at just 5'5½".
  • In the Happy Tree Friends fandom, one particular Fan-Preferred Couple is Flippy (a bear) and Flaky (a porcupine). While the two (like most of the characters) are the same size on the show, some fans like to de-anthropomorphize the characters. D'aww ensues.
  • Enemy of My Enemy has Sarah Jennings — a young, human girl — form a strong bond of friendship with two Seperatist Hunters whom she dubs 'Jib' and 'Jubb'.
  • Leif of soulless shell isn't described as being particularly big, but his girlfriend Maoimi can't reach above his waist (She's supposed to be seventeen.)
  • Moration and Persephone in Lovehammer Inc, often combined with Parrot Pet Position.
  • Hit And Miss, a NSFW Balthier/Ashe fanfic, brings up the difference in the two characters' heights frequently. When it's mentioned in Chapter 20, Balthier sleeps with someone else and can't stop himself from thinking that, compared to Ashe, she's too tall.


Films — Animation[]

  • The Incredibles. Bob (a.k.a. Mr. Incredible) and Helen Parr (a.k.a. Elastigirl). This led to an interesting problem for the animators; when Bob and Helen get into a shouting match in the first half of the film, it looked in the storyboards like an abusive giant berating a tiny woman rather than a loud disagreement between overall equals. Their solution was to have Helen use her stretching powers to loom over Bob at the climax of the scene.
    • It's both silly and logical at the same time...
    • Well, what other woman could -ahem- withstand a huge guy with Super Strength?
  • Pacha and his wife Chica (with "chica" being a Spanish word for either "girl" or "small (feminine)") from The Emperors New Groove, as well as Yzma and Kronk.
  • The director's commentary in Shrek suggests that Shrek and Fiona were specifically designed for this image.
  • Disney's Beauty and the Beast, of course. Even after the transformation there's still a quite a size difference. Heck, also Jerkass Gaston was quite bigger than Belle was. In the musical Belle is usually cast as short as possible to play up this aspect.
  • In Mulan II, Chien-Po, the guy big enough to pick up four people and a horse, ends up with the tiniest of the princesses.
  • In Monsters, Inc.: Sulley (a furry monster with the build of a lineman) grows attached to a two-year-old girl which he names "Boo."
    • Also, it's worth noting that his assistant (and all the assistants of the 'scarers' at their workplace) are dwarfed by their counterparts, with Mike literally being about the size of Sulley's head.
  • Kerchack and Kala from Disney's Tarzan. This one's justified, since male gorillas really are much bigger than the females.
  • Hercules and Meg
  • Alpha and Omega has one: A biker and a librarian. Opposites attract indeed....


Films — Live Action[]

  • Non-romantic example: Gentle Giant One and Wise Beyond Her Years Miette from the French Film The City of Lost Children.
  • Jaws and his girlfriend, Dolly, in Moonraker. There was some concern about audiences accepting the height difference until Richard Kiel pointed out his Real Life wife is the same height.
  • Hellboy and Liz.
  • The Great Child and The Dire Mother from Thir13een Ghosts.
  • Blade II. Lighthammer and his lover Verlaine, two vampire members of the Bloodpack.
  • In The Wanderers, the leader of the The Fordham Baldies, Terror, is played by the 6'6 and well over 300 lbs Erland van Lindh, while his girl Peewee is played by the 4'10 Linda Manz.
  • The guy who built the building in Being John Malkovich was allegedly a sea captain married to a dwarf woman and built the 7 1/2 floor for her and her "accursed kind" (Katherine Keneer's character doesn't believe it).
  • In Black Cat, White Cat, six-foot plus Grga Veliki and midget Afrodita end up together, after Grga finds her in a stump. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • King Kong. Played with, in fact, by Merian C. Cooper. According to Fay Wray, when she was given the part of Ann Darrow, Cooper told her that she'd be working with "the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood."
  • Taken to an extreme in Big Top Pee-Wee, with circus owner Kris Kristofferson and his wife, who is small enough to live in his shirt pocket.
  • In Robert Altman's Popeye, Olive is engaged to Bluto, and while trying to sing his praises, can only come up with "he's large".
  • Inverted in Angel-A where Angela (supermodel Rie Rasmussen) is a lot taller than Andre.
  • The film version of Thor has the waifish Natalie Portman paired with the towering and chiseled Chris Hemsworth.
  • Quigley Down Under has 6'4 Tom Selleck and maybe 5'0 Lauren San Giacomo.
  • In Mirror Mask, Valentine isn't "huge", but he is far enough on the tall side to contrast with petite Helena.


Literature[]

  • In Black House, the biker named Mouse tells of his late girlfriend, Little Nancy. Jack asks how big Little Nancy was, since Mouse is 6'2 and 290 pounds. Mouse remarks that he could have lifted her one-handed.
  • What about Grignr and his Distressed Damsel in The Eye of Argon?
  • Susan and the unnamed protagonist of Neil Gaiman's short story "Goliath".
  • In The Sharing Knife series: Fawn "I'm not a child, I'm just short" Bluefield and Dag Redwing, who's so tall and lanky that Fawn can't reach up to touch his face unless he stoops.
  • Non-romantic (at the moment, anyway) example: Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy from The Dresden Files. (He's canonically 6'9"; she's five feet tall.)
    • Another non-romantic example from the same series: Kincaid and the Archive, who have an implied 'father'/super-intelligent daughter relationship.
    • Possible example, Thomas and Justine. Thomas has been mentioned as tall (though, not nearly as tall as Harry), and Justine has been described as tiny, frail, and waif-ish.
  • Moiraine and Lan from The Wheel of Time (and later, of course, Nynaeve and Lan).
    • Also Rand and Min, Perrin and Faile, Mat and Tuon. In Rand and Lan's case this would likely always be true, as they are both around 6'6; Perrin is also fairly gigantic, 6'2" and 240 pounds of solid muscle. On the other hand, Moiraine and Tuon are both legitimately fairly small women.
  • From Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar, Talia and Dirk, who's been referred to as "that man-mountain of hers". Also a case of Ugly Guy, Hot Wife.
  • Captain Carrot and Angua von Uberwald of Discworld. Angua has never been described as particularly small, granted, but it probably wouldn't matter, seeing as Carrot is 6'5" (196cm) and nearly as broad across the shoulder.
  • David Eddings' Belgariad and Malloreon series: Garion is at least six and a half feet (about 2 m) tall, possibly seven feet (about 2.1 m). His wife Ce'Nedra, being part-Dryad, is 5' (152 cm) at most — and repeatedly described as tiny.
    • Also Cyradis and her guide Toth.
    • Arguably, Barak and Merel. While Merel is never described as being small, Barak is large enough to make up for it.
  • From Honor Harrington:
    • The titular character's father is 192 cm (6'3" and a half), and her mother is third-grader size at "barely over" 125 cm (4'1" and a half).
    • Benjamin Mayhew's wife is also quite short at about 140 cm (4'7").
    • Kevin Usher is described as being rather large, quite unlike his rather petite wife Virginia.
  • Egyptologists and detectives Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson. Amelia frequently describes her husband as "Herculean".
  • In Shade's Children by Garth Nix, Ella isn't described as being particularly small, but she certainly would seem so next to her teammate Drum, who was dosed with steroids as a child. One scene implied that her armpits were about level with his waist. Interestingly, Ella is almost certainly the elder.
  • F'lar and Lessa in Dragonriders of Pern — Lessa has been referred to as "diminutive", "child-sized", etc. And she is a force of nature, personality-wise.
  • Not a romance, but the partnership of Tuskanini and Super Gnat in the Phules Company novels. He's the biggest member of the Omega Mob, she's the smallest, and they are a solid team, to the point that very pacifistic Tusk slugs a sergeant for picking on his partner.
  • Twilight anyone? Not so much Bella and Edward or Rosalie and Emmett — but Alice and Jasper. Jasper is super tall, lanky, but WAY above average, and Alice is repeatedly described as tiny and pixie-like. Because of the focus on all the male characters having huge hands, as well as the ending to Stephenie Meyer's Host describing in detail how absolutely tiny the protagonist's new human body is, contrasted with how enormous her love interest, we can safely assume that Stephenie Meyer has quite a thing for this dynamic.
    • Averted in the film series, where Ashley Greene and Jackson Rathbone are only 2-3 inches apart in height.
    • Also any girl with any of the male werewolves.
  • Karsa Orlong and Samar Dev from Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen.
  • Raven and YT in Snow Crash.
  • Jean, who is larger than average, and Ezri, who is petite (but the tallest of all her sisters) in Red Seas Under Red Skies.
  • Skua September and Isili Hasboga from The End of the Matter. Skua is described by many characters as the biggest man they've ever seen, while his employer Isili's description pegs her as half a head shorter than teenage Flinx (who'd not yet grown tall).
  • Waldo "Saucerhead" Tharpe, from the Garrett P.I. novels, is a humungous bodyguard/bruiser with a long track-record of dating women who can barely reach his elbows.
    • Probably justified, as Saucerhead is frequently hired by small women, who are bound to need bodyguarding more often than females his own size. Those who take a shine to him can then become his girlfriends, once the danger is past.
    • Garrett himself is no shrimp, yet is usually paired with Tinnie Tate, whose whole family is short.
  • The Dursleys in the Harry Potter books.
  • Non-romantic example: Sapphira (a fairly smallish woman) and Yereq (literally a giant, some nine-plus feet tall), from Oracles of Fire.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo have an arranged marriage. He's a hardened tribal leader who towers over most men, while she's thirteen years old and slight even for her age.
  • Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series features Buri and Raoul. When introduced in the first book series Buri is described as being reasonably short. Raoul is well over six foot, and apparently a massively built warrior, whereas Buri is a waif like rider. It gets pointed out directly once, when the two stand next to each other Buri doesn't even reach Raoul's shoulder.
    • There's also Daine and Numair; Daine is probably about 5 feet tall (although the numbers aren't given), and Numair is 6'5" (which is specified).
      • Actually, in Wolf Speaker, it said that Daine was 5 feet 5 inches (at the age of fourteen). She probably grew a couple more inches since then, but she still would be short compared to Numair.
    • And Alanna and Jon or George from Song of the Lioness, this because the girl is short rather than the boy tall.
      • Wouldn't this therefore be a case of One Head Taller?
      • It's actually strongly implied, by Wild Magic if nothing else, that Alanna is about average/not far below average in height for a woman, but was always considered short, because she was disguised as a boy for eight years. Between most of her friends already thinking of her as short and people Expecting Someone Taller, she's just thought of as short.
  • Red and Sorcha from Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest Sorcha is very petite and compared to Red who's a pretty big guy, she's like a small child.
  • A "Post-Modern Fairy Tale" book features a very butch princess (she likes wrestling and fixing helicopters) whose parents force her to preside over an engagement gauntlet of princes who must be taller, stronger, and maybe even smarter then her in order to marry her. They are especially intersted in the only guy who's taller then the princess; unfortunately he's also a Noodle Person who has to wrestle her (she lets him win to avoid injuring him). Meanwhile, she falls for the same prince's pilot/chauffer, who's much shorter and chubbier but very much her equal. Naturally, he's the real prince and the tall guy is his pilot/chauffer. They switched because the prince knew his height would've instantly eliminated him, and he thought the whole thing was silly anyway.
  • Brother/Sister version in The Millennium Trilogy books, with the Zalachenko half-siblings. Super-hacker Lisbeth is frequently described as looking like a skinny teenager, and then we're introduced to her well-nigh invulnerable, over 6-feet-tall dimwitted hulk of a brother...
  • Mary Gentle's recurring characters Baltazar Casaubon and Valentine, although that's probably mostly attributable to Balthazar being absolutely massive.
    • And in Grunts! we have the pairing of Ashnak (six feet of muscular orc) and Magda Brandiman, a halfling (probably around 3' to 4' at the most).
  • Derek and Chloe from the Darkest Powers series. Derek is built like a linebacker, with shoulders nearly as broad as the average doorway, and stands at around 6'3" or so. He also weighs about 220lbs. Chloe is five-foot-nothing and probably weighs 100lbs soaking wet.
  • In the Spellsinger universe, native residents of the fantasy world are significantly shorter than those in the nonmagical twenty-first century world. Talea is in fact quite tall by her native world's standards, but she's much shorter than her love interest, the six-foot Fish Out of Water Jon-Tom.
  • Ken Follet's " The Pillars of the Earth" Tom Builder is described to be unusually tall and muscular and His second wife Ellen is described to be leaner and smaller
  • In any PG Wodehouse story where Stinker Pinker and Stiffy Bing make an appearance, Bertie will introduce them in the narration by remarking how they embody this trope.
  • Played for Body Horror rather than humor in Ramsey Campbell's Cthulhu Mythos story "The Faces At Pine Dunes", in which Michael's tall father has grown enormously fat and his mother is petite. His father's body eventually absorbs his mother's, and it's implied Michael and his girlfriend will do the same in the future.
  • In John C. Wright's War of the Dreaming, half-titan Raven is married to the very, very petite Wendy. She's not kidding when she says he can pick her up with one hand.
  • Brandon Vanderkool (6'8") and Madeline Rousseau (5' ish) in Border Songs.
  • In Death: This trope is played straight a few times, and Mavis and Leonardo happen to be the recurring couple to fit this trope.
  • The first love of 4'11", skinny Cherijo Grey Veil's life is a seven-foot Jorenian. She eventually ends up marrying Duncan Reever; while he's nowhere near that big, he's still quite tall.
  • To some extent, George and Jessie Challenger from Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Notably, Challenger is short (well, at least when compared to Edward Malone), but only because he has short, stocky legs. His chest, arms and head are huge, and his wife is a tiny, thin woman whom he is able to lift absolutely without any effort. To Malone, they together resemble a gorilla and a gazelle.
  • Possibly Nessa and Tulkas in JRR Tolkien's The Silmarillion—she's described as petite and graceful, like a deer, and he's massive and muscular.


Live Action TV[]

  • One On One focuses on the 6'4" Flex Washington and his 5'4" teenage daughter Breanna.
  • Goren and Eames, detective partners on Law & Order: Criminal Intent
  • On Farscape, the enormous and well-built Ka D'Argo has a close relationship with the short, slender Chiana.
  • The lead characters in the Shakespea Re Told Taming Of The Shrew.
  • Opie and his wife Donna from Sons of Anarchy.
  • Matt and Daphne on Heroes seem to have a bit of this.
    • Sylar and Elle have a major height difference, as does Claire and any guy she's paired with, ever. of course, she now doesn't need to be paired with any more guys...
    • (Hell, most of the couples on the show have this going. Someone in the casting department has a "type" or a kink, it seems. Both Claire and Elle are about 5' 1 and just about the only short guy in the whole show is Hiro).
  • Part of the reason the Cliff/Olivia comedy dynamic worked so well on The Cosby Show was that she was tiny, making the normal-height Cliff look huge.
  • Pushing Daisies had most of its relationships qualify--its four leads were a pair of tall guys (actors Lee Pace and Chi McBride are 6'3" and 6'4", respectively) and a pair of petite women (actors Kristin Chenoweth and Anna Friel are 4'11" and 5'2", respectively). As it made for some great sight gags, the writers loved to play with this trope.
  • Smallville: Clark and Lana.
    • Clark and Chloe count non-romantically, too. Allison Mack has to wear high heels and it's been mentioned she has to stand on a box in some scenes.
    • Romantically, Oliver and Chloe.
    • Clark and Lois count too, even though Erica Durance is taller (at about 5'8") than the other main females on the show. There was even a reference to Lois and Clark's height difference when, in one episode, Lois kicked a stack of newspapers over to where Clark was standing so she could stand on top of them to kiss him, even though she was wearing high heels.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya and her viking ex Olaf. Even before the troll thing.
    • To a lesser extent, Buffy and Angel and Buffy and Riley; Sarah Michelle Gellar is 5'3" and skinny, and David Boreanaz is VERY tall (6'1" according to IMDB) and muscular, as is Marc Blucas.
  • Weirdly averted in Power Rangers Jungle Fury. The Blue Ranger Theo (played by Aljin Arabela) is clearly shorter than the Yellow Ranger Lily (played by reasonably 5' 5¼" (1.66 m) tall Anna Hutchison) with whom he gets into a relationship by the end of the series.
  • Sex and the City: Carrie and (in particular) Aidan.
  • On Charmed, often the men are much larger and brawnier than the women, which can be seen particularly with Phoebe, while she was dating Cole, and in the 8th season, when she was with Coop. Milano, who played Phoebe, is 5'2. Both the actors were 6'3.
  • Non-romantic example: Sam Axe and Fiona Glennane in Burn Notice, though they've had to play out the trope a few times.
  • Dwight Schrute and Angela Martin from The Office. Another one of the reasons the pairing is cute despite its obvious weirdness.
    • Darryl and Kelly, too. Also somewhat difficult to avoid with an actor as tall as John Krasinski (6'3").
  • Glee has Finn (6'3 Cory Montieth) and Rachel (5'2 Lea Michele) along with Ken and Emma to a lesser extent.
    • Glee slash fanficcers who ship Puck/Kurt like this dynamic; even though Chris Colfer (who does, in fact, somewhat resemble a girl) actually had a growth spurt since the mid-season one hiatus and is now a solid 5'10. He is rather waiflike but fanfic writers tend to overemphasize how small he is, in spite of the fact that he's by no means short. In fact, he's the same height as Mark Salling. He only appears smaller because Salling is built like a linebacker, which gives the impression of this trope.
  • In Everybody Loves Raymond, there's both 6'2" Ray Romano with 5'2" Patricia Heaton, and 6'8" Brad Garrett with 5'6" Monica Horan. In fact, you could bring up pretty much any romantic interest Brad Garrett had throughout the course of the show... it's Brad Garrett, after all.
    • Though it is not a romantic relationship, whenever "Robert" (6'8") stands next to "Debra" (5'2"), the 18 inch height difference is, obviously, really noticeable.
  • In Chuck Zachary Levi (Chuck) who is 6'4" is at some point paired with Rachel Bilson (Lou, a Romantic False Lead) who is 5'2", a full foot and two inches shorter! She even mentions that she is "intrigued by their height difference".
  • On Seinfeld, the petite Elaine and her barrel-chested recurring love interest David Puddy. Additionally, Patrick Warburton is 6'3", while Julia Louis-Dreyfus is 5'2", making him more than a foot taller.
  • Scrubs gives us the Almighty Janitor and his wife, Lady.
    • And in the "The Final Four" episode of Neil Flynn's new show The Middle the trope is lampshaded when his character meets his wife's Boss for the first time and the Boss remarks about how short women always go for tall men.
  • Lily and Marshall from How I Met Your Mother. Hilariously played with during an early Halloween episode when they dressed up as Sonny and Cher--with Lily as Sonny and Marshall as Cher.
    • Lily once had a nightmare about Marshall leaving her for a woman who was, in Nightmare Marshall's words, "more height appropriate."
    • Also her terror at the Marshall household for Thanksgiving when she suspected she was pregnant and Marshall's mother told her that Marshall was born about the size of the turkey they were having.
  • Will Riker and Deanna Troi.
  • Roger and Val Have Just Got In — While Dawn French is somewhat of a larger lady but she is short statured, especially compared to Alfred Molina.
  • Another platonic example on NCIS: LA — Boss Hetty (played by 4'9" Linda Hunt) is frequently in scenes opposite team psychologist Nate (played by 6'4" Peter Cambor), as they are two of the 'left behind' characters when the team go on missions. This is often played for laughs, with Nate forced to stoop over Hetty's Hetty-sized desk.
    • Also Eric and Nell.
  • On Six Feet Under, 6'7" James Cromwell is nearly a foot taller than 5'8" Frances Conroy.
  • Homicide: Life On the Street had Emma Zoole. played by 5'1" Lauren Tom, briefly dating Tim Bayliss, played by 6'5" Kyle Secor. Before that, she flirted with the 6'2" Lewis.
  • From Merlin, Arthur and Guinevere. At one point they had a gag that involved Gwen hiding from sight behind Arthur. She was completely obscured until he stood aside, telling Morgana: "There's someone here to see you..."
    • Add to this the fact that Bradley James is built like a line-backer and Gwen is usually dressed in incredibly feminine clothing that emphasizes her daintiness. In one promotional picture that involves the two of them kissing, Angel Coulby is quite clearly standing on her toes.
  • On True Blood, 6"5" Hoyt briefly dates 5"0" Summer.
  • House and Cuddy were together in season seven of House. Hugh Laurie is 6'2.5", while Lisa Edelstein is 5'4", putting them 10.5 inches apart.
  • On ~30 Rock~, 5"4" Liz once had a offscreen fling with 7" Grizz
    • And while Will Forte is not particularly tall, his character Paul is often wearing high heels in his scenes with Jenna.
  • Rene Artois in Allo Allo has this going on with two of his mistresses, Maria and Mimi (especially Mimi, since her actress is over a foot shorter than Gordon Kaye who plays Rene), to the point they have to stand on a stool to kiss him and neither can hug him and put their arms more than halfway around.
  • In Game of Thrones Daenerys is fairly short and slight, while her husband Khal Drogo is frankly massive, with her barely coming up to his chest, and he is a reallllllly beefy dude as well.
  • The eighth episode of Supernatural season 7 gave us Sam and Becky Rosen-Winchester.
  • On The X-Files, David Duchovny (6'.5") was ten and a half inches taller than Gillian Anderson (5'2").
  • This trope is used for a sight gag on Boy Meets World: Frankie, who is quite tall and large, and his dad, played by professional wrestler Vader, are at a meeting in Mr. Feeny's office and them stepping out of the room reveals a short, waif woman who's revealed to be Frankie's mom was standing behind them the whole time.
  • The episode "Voyage of the Damned" on Doctor Who had this with the Doctor, played by the 6'1" David Tennant, and Astrid Peth, played by Kylie Minogue, who is only five feet tall. This is fully played up in one scene when Astrid literally pulls up a box and stands on it to give the Doctor a goodbye kiss.


Music[]

  • Eek-A-Mouse's song Rude Boy is basically just about people having a problem with him being so much taller than his girlfriend. With the lyrics Whole heap a people jus' a start to laugh
    She too short an' a me too tall
    She too short an' a me too tall, ey (its in Jamaican Patois)
  • The video for Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" has, among 2 mannequins coming to life and various couples, as Steven Tyler puts it in the song, "shagging in the elevator", there is one couple consisting of a huge man and a female midget.
  • Fleetwood Mac gives us 5'1" Stevie Nicks and 6'5" Mick Fleetwood. Never officially a couple, but they did have an affair.
  • The music video for "Paparazzi" had the 5'1" Lady Gaga dating 6'4" Alexander Skarsgard
  • Subverted in The Smashing Pumpkins. While Billy Corgan is very tall at 6'4", D'arcy Wretzsky is only about seven inches shorter at 5'9".
  • Märchen von Friedhof and Elise from the Rock Opera, Märchen. Märchen himself isn't exceptionally tall, but he doesn't need to be when Elise is the size of a porcelain doll.


Pro Wrestling[]

  • Particularly in WWE, where they appreciate the big man (perhaps too much), there can be a lot of Huge Guy, Tiny Girl relationships. Particularly notable was the hinted at relationship of 7' (2.1m), then-(approximately) 485 lb. (220kg) Big Show and, though she was not very slender herself, 5'3" (160cm) Joy Giovanni.
    • That's just as true in real life, The Big Show is much bigger than his wife.
      • Yes, however, you must consider that Big show is Bigger than just about anyone. The only way he'd avoid being the poster boy for this trope would be if he was dating someone the size of The Great Kahli — another enormous wrestler who is bigger than any of his girlfriends by a significant amount.
  • TNA's "Mexican America" stable was this with two huge latinos and two tiny latinas, especially Rosita.
    • For reference on how small Rosita was in a match of Mexican America vs D'Von and The Pope, Pope was able to lift Sarita by her hair with one arm above the ground for an extended period of time. Sarita wasn't much taller and in one match both ladies got carried away in an Over-the-Shoulder Carry by 1 person.
  • Alexa Bliss is known as "5 Feet of Fury" and was smaller than even most of the other women was teamed with Braun Strowman who isn't far off the Big Show in height. during a segment where Braun was sitting down and she was standing they were about eye level. Then he stood up...
  • Luna Vachon wasn't that small but Bam Bam Bigelow was a little less than a head taller than her... and much wider.
  • Not the biggest standards for WWE golden era but Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth counts.
  • Throughout his career John Cena has been romantically linked to small women such as Mickie James, Maria and AJ Lee.
  • Viscera was much taller and even wider than the women he was linked with in Lillian Garcia and Trish Stratus.
  • Generally the case for Godfather and his hos.
  • A sort of funny aversion was forming before Enzo Amore was released when he and Nia Jax were teasing on air chemistry as Nia was a big girl (with rotund build) for the women's division standard and Enzo was a small man in the usual division yet both of them were eye level.
  • WWE Mix Match Challenge had this dynamic often with it's team mates though some exceptions such as Bobby Roode and Charlotte Flair did exist (this one more because of her height than his) though the males were always heavier and more muscular.
  • Cute Kip was this to the rest of the beautiful people, who were women, during his time in the group. This one is more because of how tall he is as they were average sized women.
  • Aside from debatably Tamina this was the dynamic with the male New Day and female Team B.A.D. segments.
  • A non romantic version happened for a little time while Amy Webber worked for Bradshaw.

Theater[]


Video Games[]

  • Enslaved: Odyssey to the West gives us Monkey and Trip. Monkey is a HUGE, muscular wild man who can pretty easily rip war robots into pieces. Trip is a light, young teenager who relies on her brains to get things done. He carries her around on his back and throws her onto ledges and across gaps like it's nothing. Of course, she's only nineteen, and we aren't really given an age for Monkey, but it's safe to assume that he's a few years older than her.
  • In the Super Mario Bros. series, Bowser is explicitly stated to have a crush on Peach; while Peach is probably average to tall for a human woman, Bowser is almost always at least double her size.
  • Yeto and Yeta from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. They're yetis, so perhaps it's justified as being an aspect of their species — but then again, Yeto is over twice the size of Yeta...
    • It seems that Yeta is quite a bit younger than Yeto... but that could very well be another trope entirely.
      • Nah, that definitely goes for a different trope.
    • Also Link and Midna...sort of. Link is generally on the small side (with even the waifish Princess Zelda being taller than him), but Midna's gotta be about 2' (61cm) or so, making this Tiny Guy, Even Tinier Girl.
    • Don't forget Midna's true form is taller than Link AND Zelda. So it could be Huge Girl Tiny Guy after all.
  • Non-romantic example: A Big Daddy and a Little Sister from Bioshock.
  • Ignis the Harvest King from Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is a potential hidden suitor to the much-shorter female protagonist. Conversely, there's the male protagonist and Sephia the Harvest Goddess. To a slightly lesser extent, there is also the town doctor, Jin.
  • Hector and Florina's ending in Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade could qualify. Judge for yourself.
    • Another example would be the Cleric Serra and General Oswin from the same game, if they get paired up (This one's also May-December Romance). There's also Dorcas and his NPC wife, Natalie. If we go to non-romantic lines, we have the Berserker Hawkeye and the Dancer Ninianuntil she's forced to break out her dragon form by Nergal's magic, whereupon the situation reverses. Also, Jaffar and Nino.
    • Radiant Dawn takes the Ho Yay between Ike and Soren to all but canonical proportions... and Ike pretty much towers over Soren. Also, there's Sothe and Micaiah.
    • Don't forget any of Gentle Giant Arden's pairings in Genealogy of the Holy War, especially with the Pegasus Knight Erinys or the Swordswoman Ayra
    • Also, in The Sacred Stones, Gilliam/Syrene, Ross and Amelia, and the mentoring/father-daughter bond between Amelia and Duessel. L'Arachel and Dozla is a non-romantic example as well.
    • Heck, almost any relationship between any female character and a Genius Bruiser male counts.
    • Hasha no Tsurugi, the Alternate Continuity manga of Binding Blade has Gant and Celdia. Becomes official at the end and overlaps with Hot Skitty-On-Wailord Action, since they have eight kids together. In Binding Blade itself, you can pair up Lilina (Roy's childhood friend and main love interest) with the Gentle Giant Gonzales.
    • Fire Emblem Awakening: a Female Avatar can be customized to be really tiny and cute, while girls like Lissa and Nowi ARE naturally short. They can be romanced by tall guys like Vaike, Lon'qu, Frederick, Gregor, Gaius, Chrom, etc,. and in the case of a Girl Avatar, by the huge DLC men like Walhart, Yen'fay or Priam.. Among the younger girls Nah, Female Morgan and Cynthia are the shortest and they can marry huge guys like Yarne or Brady. A male Avatar with the third build can marry the aforementioned Lissa, Nowi, Nah, and Cynthia.
    • Fire Emblem Fates: Again, a Female Avatar can be customized to be quite small — around the size of the also tiny Mozu, Sakura and Elise. All of them can hook up with taller guys, whether in Hoshido or Nohr — which includes Prince Ryoma, Prince Xander, Benny or Arthur. Younger girls like Mitama, Midori and a Female Kana can hook up with young boys that tower over them like Shiro, Dwyer, Siegbert or Ignatius. A male Avatar can also be quite tall and marry the aforementioned Sakura, Elise, and Mozu, plus Black Magician Girl Nyx and Midori.
    • Fire Emblem: Heroes has a platonic example in Helbindi (172 cms) and Princess Ylgr (146 cms), a family one between Princess Veronica (150 cms) and her older brother Prince Bruno aka the Mysterious Man (188 cms). and a borderline romantic one between Líf aka the Alfonse from the Bad Future (199 cms) and Thrásir (171 cms).
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has Raphael Kirsten (190 cms in both story phases) and many of the girls he can romance, especially Lysithea von Ordelia (160 cms after the Time Skip) and Bernadetta von Varley (165 cms post-Time Skip). There's also Hubert von Vestra (188 cms) and his ladies, like Bernadetta and Princess Edelgard von Hresvelg (158 cms); whereas both Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (188 cms post-Time Skip) and Dedue Molinaro (a whooping 204 cms) can marry the tiny Flayn (151 cms, the tiniest girl in the whole cast), the also tiny Annette Fantine Dominic (153 cms post TS) and the short-ish Ingrid Brandle Galatea (165 csms post TS), plus Dimitri can also wed Marianne von Edmund, who is around Ingrid's height. And the Ashen Wolves have Balthus von Albrecht (198 cms) and both the aforementioned Lysithea and his Childhood Friend Hilda (154 cms in both phases).
  • Chris and Sheva in Resident Evil 5. Chris is only about a head taller, but he's quite a bit bulkier. To a lesser but still qualifying extent is Chris with his own younger sister Claire, she is taller than Sheva and on the taller end for the female spectrum but Chris is still taller and notably burlier than her.
    • Averted in Resident Evil 4. Leon is only a head taller than Ashley, and the same height as Ada.
    • Ex-marine Billy Coen is nearly as burly as Chris, and Resident Evil 0 sets him as partner to tiny eighteen-year-old rookie S.T.A.R.S. Medic Rebecca Chambers.
  • Referenced above, Sanger Zonvolt and Irui Ganedan from the Super Robot Wars Alpha games. May or may not be romantic. Notable in that while Irui shares a similar relationship with the other main characters in their stories, it's Sanger/Irui that gets all the fanart.
    • Judging from the ending of Original Generation Gaiden (and the sequel to Endless Frontier), it looks like Axel Almer and Alfimi is going on this way as well.
    • Also, Kazuma Ardygun and his little sister/copilot Mihiro in W.
    • And then Super Robot Wars Z gives us the pair Rand Travis and Mel Peter, which plays this trope straight.
    • Tasuku and Leona from Original Generations — Tasuku's Giganscudo is positively gargantuan in comparison to Leona's signature Seiguarlion.
  • Rival Schools oddly has this with The Napoleon Shoma and the even shorter Momo, though it's mostly one-sided by Momo.
  • A mild case in Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, where it's, uh, Huge Guy, Tiny Bishounen. Although Raikov is supposed to be the same height and shape as Naked Snake (hence why his uniform had to be used), Volgin is enormous.
  • Astro Boy's younger sister Uran seems to have this kind of relationship with the giant robot Pluto in at least one of the alternate timelines in Astro Boy Omega Factor.
  • A (thankfully) nonromantic example from Tales of Symphonia: Regal and Presea.
    • Of course, there's the canonically romantic example of Regal and Presea's sister, Alicia.
  • Beyond Good and Evil gives us Jade and Double H: Tiny Reporter, Huge Soldier. Whether it's romantic or not is a debate is best left to the shippers. (This trope could also be considered inverted with Jade and Pey'j — Huge Girl, Tiny (But Not Svelte) Pig Man — but that's more a case of Shorter Means Smarter.)
  • Lu Bu and his concubine Diaochan in the Dynasty Warriors games. Probably in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms too.
    • It's even more noticeable with the Qiao sisters and their respective husbands.
  • Rufus and his girlfriend in Street Fighter IV. What makes it funnier is that Candy is actually pretty tall compared to some of the other characters, but Rufus practically dwarfs her.
  • The more dimorphic races in World of Warcraft, especially draenei and trolls. However, both of these are slightly unusual cases: With draenei, both sexes are approximately the same height, and it's almost entirely a matter of the fellas being several times wider. With trolls, both sexes are long and lean... but not only are females leaner, but males would be more than One Head Taller if they didn't slouch.
    • In that case, there's also everyone's favorite fan fiction pairing: Lady Jaina Proudmoore and Warchief Thrall. She's an only slightly taller than average human woman (albeit up-scaled a bit in game by virtue of being a boss character), while he's big by orc standards. Um...ow?
    • Arguably, the entire game since the males in this game are quite large compare to the female. Even the Bishonen Blood Elf males quite large and muscular; made even worse by the fact that female Blood Elves are practically stick figures, just really hot stick figures.
      • Male blood elves were originally design to better fit the slim Japanese Bishonen look but that apparently did not fit the American (mostly male) taste. Even then, they still get the gay jokes even though they are actually bigger than the build of the average real life human male.
  • Arguably, Halo gives us Master Chief and Cortana. One is a 7' (2.1m) tall supersoldier, and the other is a holographic display usually a mere 6" (15cm) or so, when she's not a two-inch (5cm) chip inserted into his helmet.
    • Commander Keyes and the other female UNSC Marines also apply.
    • Bornstellar's unnamed parents definitely qualify. His father is four meters tall; his mother is only two. The Didact and the Librarian might possibly qualify.
  • Not as extreme an example as some, but Garrus and Tali in Mass Effect 3. One is noticeably taller and bulkier than a human, the other is about the height of a human when standing on the balls of her feet.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2 has a do-it-yourself example. Neither Casavir nor Gannanyev discriminate by race, and are perfectly willing to romance a female Halfling PC.
  • Everyone on board the Felix/Sheba ship!
    • I think it's more of a One Head Taller case. Felix is certainly tall, but by no means huge. Also, take their ages into account: Felix is 18-ish, while Sheba is only 14. She'll probably have grow some more.
    • How about Agatio and Karst? (Karst is not particularly tiny-- but Agatio is head-and-shoulders taller than her, so it still counts.)
    • And the Garet/Jenna ship? (ETA: Garet/Jenna since sunk by Dark Dawn)
      • If you’re an Ivan/Mia shipper, though, you've got an aversion: They're roughly the same height, though Mia is just a little taller, and Ivan a little younger. (ETA: Also sunk by Dark Dawn)
    • Dark Dawn gives us Eoleo and Himi, the tallest and shortest party members respectively, who are often portrayed as having an Intergenerational Friendship.
  • Happens easily in City of Heroes where your typical female PC is under 5'10" (178cm) (often under 5' (152cm) even) in height while many male PCs are past the 6'6" (2m) mark and top out at 8'2" (2.5m). Males also have exclusive access to the huge muscular models while females are kept on the slender side. There is nothing to stop players from making 8'2" (2.5m) women, cute bruisers are just much more popular.
    • Happens with NPCs as well. The Carnival of Shadows is the most extreme example, where the Strongmen are 3-4 times the size of the women who order them around.
    • There's also Ghost Widow and the Wretch. It's hard to tell if it's romantic, seeing as she's a literal ghost, and he's a horribly mutated brute with so little brain power it literally hurts his head to talk. Still, they definitely care a lot about each other, and it's possible there was something there before they both lost their humanity to the same accident.
  • In Saints Row 2, Brotherhood leader Maero towers over everyone he meets, including his girlfriend Jessica.
  • In ~Punch-Out!!~ on Wii, Super Macho Man's opening montage shows him with a series of girlfriends, each one about half his size.
  • In Final Fantasy X, the Official Couple of Tidus and Yuna are both roughly the same height (Tidus is just a smidge taller), but the villain who's interested in Yuna and does end up marrying her freaking towers over her. Official heights don't make sense and seem to vary between FMV-models and gameplay-models, but general fannish consensus is that Yuna hovers around 5'3", while Seymour is something like 6'4" with a fondness for hairstyles and clothing that makes him look larger than he already is.
  • Final Fantasy XI Elvaan and Galka males typically dwarf the females of all the other races. Though Fanon seems to have particular appeal for Mithra/Male Elvaan parings, often exaggerating this element to extreme degrees. Most likely because the Mithra are cute little Catgirl, and the Elvaan are towering Elf Bishonen.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Serah, who is around Vanille's height of 5'4" and just as slim, is engaged to Snow, who is 6'5 (or 6'7, depending on the source) and has a strong muscular build.
  • Final Fantasy VII (mainly Dirge of Cerberus), Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi (especially for those who are huge fans of Yuffentine).
  • Seems that Square's development team for the Dissidia games is fond of this. It's a subtle example, but the characters' official heights are disregarded in a very consistent way: Male characters are generally sized up (most of them averaged five-eight-ish in their original games, now most of them clear six feet easily), while the few female characters have been sized down considerably (Lightning's lost several inches, but most notable is Terra, who has dropped from five-seven to barely five feet if you take off her heels). Then you can factor in the giants--Dissidia's Mighty Glaciers who start at eight feet and climb from there. Only exceptions, really, are the Cloud of Darkness and Ultimecia, evil Statuesque Stunners, and the Onion Knight and Zidane, Kid Heroes.
  • Eddie and Ophelia in Brutal Legend, to the point where their double-team involves him lifting her with one arm (whereupon she perches comfortably on his biceps) and their combo attack is basically him throwing her at the enemy, dual blades spinning. In fact, a point could be made that pretty much all (reasonably humanoid) males in the game are either tall as hell or possess a Heroic Build of ridiculous proportions; whereas all the (human) girls are lithe killing machines with slender bodies to murder for. Nope, no Wish Fulfillment in this game.
  • The third Ace Attorney game features a humongous prison convict who talks in Hulk Speak and even chews on his ball and chain at certain points, dating a very fragile-looking girl. (Not as fragile as she looks, though.)
    • Also, arguably, Phoenix Wright and his partner (for varying definition) Maya. It's hard to tell because they're very rarely in the same frame, but in courtroom scenes Phoenix is pretty tall and broad even when leaning or slouching, and when he looks down the bench at Maya she seems much shorter in comparison. An image suitable for comparison can be seen further down on this page.
    • Dual Destinies has the ship tease-y example between the prosecutor Simon Blackquill and Phoenix's fellow lawyer and protegée Athena Cykes.
  • In Conkers Bad Fur Day, Conker seems to have a thing for taller women, given that he stands maybe up to his girlfriend Berri's kneecaps. But it truly becomes Huge Girl Tiny Guy when he meets Jugga, an enormous cavewoman. However, it doesn't work out between them.
  • Zobio (the big zombie) and Zobiko (the Cute Zombie Girl) from House of the Dead EX.
  • Kraft and Neige from Mega Man Zero. Also, he's a robot and she's human.
  • Seen occasionally in the Kingdom Hearts series:
    • In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Roxas and Xion are around the same height, but their friend and mentor Axel borders on the height of the two stacked on top of each other. This may or may not be romantic depending on how you ship (all shipping combinations of the three have been seen).
    • And in an example that both inverts this AND plays it straight, the Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep trio has a huge guy (Terra), a medium girl (Aqua), and a really tiny guy (Ven).
    • In Kingdom Hearts II, Kairi and Riku in Xehanort's Heartless form, because she's tiny when she's standing next to him.
    • Chain of Memories gives us a non-romantic (or romantic, if you ship that way) example with Lexaeus and Zexion. Lexaeus is easily the largest humanoid character in the series, while Zexion is only slightly taller than the teenaged characters.
  • Monster Hunter has an inhuman example. The Ludroth are basically alligator creatures roughly 50% longer than your hunter is tall. All of these are female. The boys — the Royal Ludroth — are four to five times the size of your hunter character. This would be seen as Hot Skitty-On-Wailord Action if they weren't the same species.
  • Billie Church and Frank Delgado, two members of the Jericho Team in Clive Barker's Jericho.
  • Averted, or limited to One Head Taller, with all of the races Rift, save one. Female bahmi are rather imposing, solidly-built ladies...but the trope is still played straight, on account of their kinsmen being both significantly taller and built like bank vaults.
  • Dynasty Warriors 4 has the Qiao sisters Da and Xiao. They are both similarly sized to each other but tiny both in build and height. Their husbands are average sized (for the series) but the heads of the Qiao sisters barely reach their chests if not a bit lower.
  • Despite being taller than the average Canadian woman, Mistress Spencer from Rumble Roses is dwarfed by her slave Sebastian who himself is quite taller than the rest of the Roses even Dixie who herself isn't short by any means. This does make it easier for the intro swap feature as he will carry Mistress or any other of the Roses to the ring.
  • Pretty much all girl and man teams in Street Fighter X Tekken have this to a degree with the exemption of Dudley and Elena who invert this (She is taller but he is much bulkier), though two stand out.
    • Ibuki and Xiaoyu (who can be considered Alternate Company Equivalents in a way) both have male partners who literally tower over them. Jin is quite tall but not excessively so compared to other guys, while Xiaoyu is tiny. Ibuki is a bit taller than Xiaoyu, but her partner Rolento is rather tall as well. Worth noting that even some developers were surprised how tall he was when he stood straight as he usually is crouching his upper body.
  • Guy who started in Final Fight has gotten Kimberly as an apprentice, while not seen together in a way they could be compared accurately she has been stated to be about Ibuki sized and since all times Guy and Ibuki have been seen together he towers over her it can be assumed the same is true for Guy and Kimberly.
  • Street Fighter: Aside from the aforementioned Guy and Rolento examples Ibuki also worked with Birdie who not only is 7 feet tall but has gotten rather fat and his presence just dwarfs hers. A scene in the story mode shows her standing next to him sitting temporarily and he is still taller. She also has a David Versus Goliath battle against Abigail in the same game and he is a legit 8 foot tall! In the same story mode she works with the similarly sized to Birdie Zangief who trades fat for muscle and even regular males such as Ryu do this to her.
  • The player in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim can set this up, generally height is tied to race and while males are still generally bigger than females of the same race the player could marry any gender from any race as long as they are seeking marriage to begin with. Choosing an Altmer male as they are the tallest race and marrying most non Altmer females will lead to this, playing a wood elf female as the yare the shortest will lead to this as long as the player marries a non Bomser male.


Web Comics[]

  • Fans!: Will and Shanna.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: Eglamore and Jones. (Well, we don't know for sure that they're a couple, but it's speculated in-universe that there's something going on between them.) It's explicitly stated that Miss Jones is the scary one of the pair. Later it's confirmed, in that concrete crumbled like a cake under her fingers.
  • Kevin and Kell. Odder still: Kevin's a rabbit and Kell is a wolf. Oh, and he's still the huge guy. Not sure if they've ever explained how that works.
    • What exactly? How 6' (183cm) rabbits are possible, or why they're in love?
      • Yes.
        • I think they go over the relationship over the course of the series. The size thing is probably linked to the same aberration that made Kevin fearless.
  • Wapsi Square's Monica, the 5'-tall (152cm) main character, suffers from this with pretty much every guy in her life — except Tepoztecal.
  • Majorly in the Insecticomics. Lasorbeak, Kickback, and Thrust have all dated/slept with Tidal Wave, who is literally the size of a battleship. Probably best not to think about how this works.
    • Also Energon Megatron and Starscream, who got married right before Megatron abdicated his position as leader and took Starscream to parts unknown. Starscream was small enough to fit on his shoulder.
    • One of the Mini-Cons is a titanophile, meaning this trope is actually her fetish.
  • Half-averted in Order of the Stick: Celia should be small according to the monster manual, but she isn't drawn that way.
  • Viktor Vasko and Ivy Pepper in Lackadaisy Cats. Viktor is over six feet tall, hulking, middle aged, and a former rum runner-turned-bartender. Ivy is a young, flirty college student and flapper- and one of the few characters in the comic that doesn't seem intimidated by Viktor.
  • Appears in flashback in Girl Genius: Klaus is considerably bigger than Lucrezia. But then he is a construct made of three people.
  • Carli, a chinchilla, and her wolf husband in Sabrina Online.
    • Also, Thomas' parents.
  • The Girl and The Fed in A Girl and Her Fed. The tall, bulky Fed is initially afraid he might hurt the diminutive girl in a fit of anger...but she can actually beat him up.
  • Jasmine and Chook in The Bare Pit (NSFW).
  • A (presumably) Non-romantic example in Goblins: Life through their Eyes with an Ogre and a Kobold.
  • Largo and Pirogoeth from Megatokyo.
  • Chirault. Kiran is average-sized, but his Morality Pet Teeko is a young girl--and she's been shrunk to a few inches in height by a stray magic spell.
  • Not a couple, but anyone who is normal height looks tiny compared to the seven foot tall Sterling from Adorable Desolation
  • Rocko & Molly, for the brief time that they were sort-of-together, in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob.
  • While Reinhold in Dominic Deegan isn't exactly huge for a human knight, Kiya is probably one of the lightest orcs ever seen.
  • Both the Kings and Queens of Homestuck gain power and change shape as players join their game. But while the Queens retain their more or less human height, the Kings grow with each change until they're mountain-crushing colossi.
  • Though she isn't tiny by any means, Mora of Las Lindas looks pretty short next to her hulking, bull man boyfriend Minos.
  • Murray and Camille, the Official Couple of Bloody Urban. Murray is the tallest character in the series. Camille barely reaches his chest.


Web Original[]

  • In Survival of the Fittest, while this is not normally looked at in a romantic way, Bayview (V4's school) has an abnormally tall population. The current average height of a female student is a relatively normal 5'5"...the male population on the other hand has the average height of 6'2.
  • While not a couple, this is the The Nostalgia Critic and The Nostalgia Chick: Doug is 6'0, Lindsay is 5'2. Especially noticeable in the Fern Gully review where they're fighting; while the Chick moves around a lot, the Critic never gets up from his chair.
  • Lucy (5'7") and Michael (8'0") of Vampire Quest, Peri (4'7") and Leto (5'9" and growing) of Necromancy Quest both Viridian Dreams Quests.


Western Animation[]

  • Teen Titans had Kole and G'Nark.
  • From Disney's Gargoyles, Goliath and Demona, before Demona turned evil and stuff. Later, Goliath and Eliza Maza, a human, which is more Beast and Beauty, but the brief moments in the episode "Mirror, Mirror, when both had been the same species (both ways, even) showed the trope prove true. And then Broadway with Angela.
    • The size difference between Oberon and Titania is less extreme, but noticeable enough to count as well.
  • Common in the DCAU partially due to the art style which tends towards slim women and heavily-built men
    • Green Lantern and Hawkgirl.
    • Aquaman and Mera.
    • From Batman: The Animated Series: Baby Doll and Killer Croc. She's really an adult, but that's still a serious Crack Pairing.
    • Wonder Woman is large enough that if they ever actually went through with the Ship Tease for her and Batman this would be totally averted, but she evoked it once in 'Maid of Honor' while hanging out the shorter-than-average Princess Audrey (a friendship over the course of which she completely failed to mention that she was also a princess, for some reason.)
    • Mister Miracle (Scott Free) and his wife Big Barda, Apokalips escapees, seem to invert this, although Scott is a little taller than average. Barda just lives up to her name. They have an episode in Justice League Unlimited along with Flash, which also features their dwarf mechanic sidekick Oberon--when Barda and Oberon hang out, they have a real non-romantic inversion going.
  • On Batman the Brave And The Bold, B'wana Beast is about a foot and a half taller and three times as wide as his girlfriend (later fiancée), Vixen.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures has a non-romantic one in Tohru and Jade (who can literally climb Tohru).
  • Matrix and AndrAIa from Re Boot.
  • Dave the Barbarian and his sister Fang. She's a little bit tense about her size.
  • Maul and Voodoo from Wild CATS. If I recall correctly she might be keeping him sane.
  • Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles has Vince and Jean Grant, Bowie and Claudia's parents and characters exclusive to the Robotech continuity.
  • The Fairly Odd Parents Jorgen Von Strangle and the Tooth Fairy. Though she still significantly taller than most of the other fairies.
  • In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington is about a foot and a half taller than Sally but very thin (understandably).
  • The Flintstones: Fred and Wilma
  • Jack and Maddie Fenton.
  • Lena Mack and any of the sharks from Street Sharks.
  • Silverbolt and Blackarachnia in Beast Machines.
    • Optimus and Elita-1 in Transformers Animated.
    • Sari and Bumblebee are a platonic example due to the mental ages involved. Lugnut and Strika are an aversion (although their relationship is only mentioned in secondary material) as they're both massive.
  • Rita and Runt from Animaniacs are a non-romantic example.
  • Owen and Izzy from Total Drama Island, though she's not particular small, just a lot smaller than him.
    • Beth and Brady. She also had a crush on Harold, who's about twice her height.
  • Beezy / Saffi on Jimmy Two-Shoes.
  • Huge Guy Tiny Guy in the case of Gus and Wally, a homosexual couple from Mission Hill.
  • Thor and Jane in Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes.
  • In the not-quite-romantic vein, there's Action Man with Alex Mann and Fidget Wilson. Fidget's canonical height was 4'11", all the better for Alex Mann to pick up and carry around.
  • Bulkhead and Miko in Transformers Prime.


Real Life[]

  • Fossils of Australopithecus afarensis reveal this trope to be Older Than Dirt, as the males were nearly 50% taller than their female counterparts, such as "Lucy."
    • This is the norm in most old-world primates, with things like mandrills having males 3 times larger than the female. To say nothing about orangutans or gorillas...
    • This is actually played-straight with a fair number of species of mammals, and inverted with a decent number of other organisms where the female is actually much larger than the male.
    • In mammals, the trope is predominantly only averted when the male of the species would EAT THE YOUNG given the opportunity. For example, polar bears.
      • An adult male weighs around 770–1,500 lb, while an adult female is about half that size. — Wikipedia
  • It is thought that in 1766 a male wolf mated with a Pomeranian resulting in nine pups. There's no telling what those puppies ended up looking like.
  • The Notorious B.I.G. (6'4 and at least 300 lbs) and Lil' Kim (4'10).
  • Hayden Panettiere and her boxer ex-boyfriend Wladimir Klitschko; she's roughly 5'1"[1] and he's 6'6", which makes for a height difference of about 17 inches. (Though really, with her height this trope could apply to all her boyfriends; her current fellow Scotty McKnight, while no giant at 5'11", still towers over her.)
    • She actually sort of quoted this trope when on Live With Regis And Kelly — she told Mr. Philbin and Miss Ripa that when they met their initial conversation went thusly:
Cquote1

 Hayden: You're HUGE!

Wladimir: You're TINY!

Cquote2
  • Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. She actually auditioned for the role of Will's girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but was rejected because of this trope.
  • Billy Corgan (6"4") and Tila Tequila (4"11"). That's not even the strangest part of the pairing.
  • 5'5" Kate Bosworth and 6"4" Alexander Skarsgard
  • Very noticeable in most species of seals. For example, female elephant seals can grow up to 10 feet in length, with a weight of 1,900 lbs. Males are almost twice as big, and can weigh three times as much!
    • Also true of nearly all members of the mustelid (weasel) family.
  • Jessica Origliasso (5'1") and Billy Corgan (6'4").
  • Jared Padalecki (6'4") and his wife Gen (5'4"). His hand is bigger than her entire face.
  • Practically mandatory in pairs figure skating, due to all the acrobatic lifts and throws required. The greatest disparity on record was a Russian pair where the man was over a foot taller and the girl hadn't yet reached puberty (when she did, the partnership ended).
  • Amy Poehler (5'2") and husband Will Arnett (6'2").
  • Former basketball player Shaq and his girlfriend Nicole.
  • Older one: Betty White and Allen Ludden-probably mostly because although he was sort of tall, White looks to be only a couple of inches over 5 feet when she isn't wearing heels.
  • The sexual dimorphism of lions in size isn't really anything spectacular, but the male lion's mane makes him look much bigger, which comes in handy for scaring off competition and for sexual selection.
    • The same can be said of peafowl.
  1. if that — her IMDb page lists her height at 5'2", but it's generally felt an inch or two has been added
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