History Main / MiniatureSeniorCitizens

** Back when Hyogoro of the Flower was a prominent yakuza boss at age fifty, he was of comparable height to Kozuki Oden, who's twelve feet tall. After twenty years of hard labour at Udon's Prisoner Mine, seventy-year-old Hyogoro has shrunk to just over three feet tall. [[spoiler: He regains his former height when infected with the Ice Oni virus, which increases a person's physical strength at the cost of putting a deadly strain on their body.]]

%%* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': Ma Dalton.

%%* Master Shifu in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'', due to him being a red panda.

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In real life, there is a basis for shrinking in scientific lore. Some people develop hunchbacks due to severe arthritis, a lifetime of malnutrition, or other medical problems. Except in cases of severe osteoporosis, however, most healthy people will only lose a couple of inches from their tallest height over their lifetime. Note, however, that each generation has been, on average, taller than the last throughout the 20th century even in the West thanks to heartier diets rich in protein that their peasant ancestors could not enjoy, while Japan in particular (and Asia in general) is currently going through an accelerated version of this phenomenon since the end of World War II. Also, from a point of view of today's Japanese, people who were children during [=WW2=] would also have been hit hard by malnutrition, food rationing and the outright starvation of 1944-45; malnutrition as children inevitably stunts growth. Place the undernourished child of 1944, now no younger than their middle seventies, against more fortunate post-war Japanese generations - i.e. the first wave of Generation X, who were born and grew up during the start of Japan's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_economic_miracle post-WWII economic miracle]] - and you will inevitably see a huge height difference. Taller people tend to have shorter lifespans, which accounts for elder characters in general being shorter, but not individual height loss.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': The Orre games, ''[[VideoGame/PokemonColosseum Colosseum]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness XD]]'', feature the Fun Old Man and Fun Old Lady trainer classes -- senior Trainers who have retired and might possibly challenge the player for the thrill. They're considerably shorter than Wes and Rui of ''Colosseum'', and about equal with Micheal of ''XD''. There's also Mayor Es Cade of Phenac [[spoiler: a.k.a. Evice, the [[PuppetKing Puppet Boss]] of Cipher]] from ''Colosseum'', who is about on par with the aforementioned trainer classes, and Mr. Verich [[spoiler: a.k.a. Greevil, Cipher's Grand Master]] from ''XD'', who is even shorter than Micheal's little sister Jovi.

* In the sitcom {{Series/Taxi}}, The Sunshine Cab Company Dispatcher Loui De Palma (Danny DeVito), lives with his elderly short Italian mother who while normally only spoken off but never seen does makes an on-screen appearance in two episodes (played by DeVito's real-life mother Julia).

Since this tends not to be noted as anything peculiar by younger characters, it's also an instance of CartoonishCompanions. See also PintSizedKid and TeensAreShort for when people on the opposite end of the age spectrum have their size difference exaggerated. %%If the elderly character is a parent, see Small Parent Huge Child.

*** The +100-year-old Impa and Robbie play this even straighter (both of them barely coming up to Link's waist), while Purah subverts it due to a [[GoneHorriblyRight botched]] anti-aging experiment resulting in her having the body of a child. Much like the aforementioned old woman, Impa and Robbie are both shown to have been of normal height [[VideoGame/HyruleWarriorsAgeOfCalamity 100 years ago]].

* In the sitcom Series/Taxi, The Sunshine Cab Company Dispatcher Loui De Palma (Danny DeVito), lives with his elderly short Italian mother who while normally only spoken off but never seen does makes an on-screen appearance in two episodes (played by DeVito's real-life mother Julia).

* A textbook example of this occurs in the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' [[TheMovie movie]] ''Ego Trip'', where child Dexter looks about two feet tall, teenage Dexter has a gangly five- or six-foot frame, FutureBadass Dexter looks like an eight foot tall, six-foot-wide musclebound gorilla, and elderly Dexter is a wrinkled little senile prune that's shorter than child Dexter.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' has, in at least Slayers NEXT (the second season of the anime), Auntie Aqua, a little old woman who's barely waist-high on Amelia. She turns out to be [[spoiler: the last remaining fragment of the soul of the Water Dragon King, one of the five gods who serve the Dragon God Ceiphied]].

%%** Edna Mode in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles''.