#yes i don't know how tall it is in centimeters because my dumb height chart is in feet and inches for some fucking reason

[hopeymchope]

Another Reason Naegiri is Important

All throughout high school and college, I heard (straight) people say things like this:

“Why do all you tiny girls keep taking all of the tall men?! There’s no one left for me to date!”

“I can’t date a woman who’s taller than me! It’s... it’s emasculating!”

“Knox is a super sweet guy but he’s... you know... he’s like, two inches shorter than me.”

“I’m not dating some Amazon. What, I’m supposed to tilt my head up to kiss her?!

“Just so you know, I make it a rule to never date any boys who are my height or shorter.”

This article from The Atlantic titled “Why it’s So Rare for a Wife to be Taller Than Her Husband” even goes into this concept is ingrained into us:

Because everyone knows men are taller on average, straight couples in which the man is shorter raise a problem of gender performance. That is, the man might not be seen as a “real” man or the woman as a “real” woman if they don't (together) display the normal pattern.

To prevent this embarrassment, some couples in which the wife is taller might choose to be photographed with the man standing on a step behind the woman, or they might have their wedding celebrated with a commemorative stamp showing her practically on her knees—as the British royals did with Charles and Diana, who were both the same height.

According to 2009 demographic and census data, only 3.9% of straight couples in the United States include a woman who is taller than the man. The study in the above article ultimately found that this is unnatural — an average, unbiased distribution of straight pairings would result in far more couples of this type, but people are actively seeking out taller men and shorter women.

There are even friggin’ advice columns for the genders that try to help people over this psychological hump, like this piece on How to Date taller Women Without Feeling Insecure. Like, okay? Is that something men need. Apparently.

Enter Naegiri.

It’s not a huge difference (and in the anime, it’s possible that Naegi is poofing his hair up a little extra in an attempt to compensate for the difference?), but these two are 7 centimeters/3 inches apart — and yes, that’s with Makoto as the shorter of the two.

Need more detail? Here’s a comparison using game sprites that I put together by sloppily cropping @sayaxgodxsaya’s Danganronpa character height comparison charts.

Even in fiction, pushing this kind of pairing in any way is very unusual. And yet it’s hard to deny that they’re shown overtly flirting and showing feelings for each other multiple times across the franchise. Despite following stupid gender norms for the photography of the Danganronpa 3 Staff Book cover, they are still blazing a trail in not-giving-a-fuck-about-this-dumb-shit.

Sure, Naegi may still be the butt of jokes such as the “Height Arc” found in one of the anthology mangas, which even tries to give Naegi a complex about his height. Plausible, sadly. But in the strictly 100% canonical material, it doesn’t actually come up! So I’m proud to see him not worry about that most of the time, and I’m especially happy to see this short kid get positive romantic attention from someone who is not only taller than him, but also someone who could — let’s face it — totally kick his ass in a fight.

Defy gender normative behavior, Naegiri! REBEL THROUGH YOUR LOVE.

#naegiri #makoto naegi #kyoko kirigiri #kyouko kirigiri #kirigiri #naegi #height arc #danganronpa #danganronpa characters #character height #character heights #short men #tall women #height differences #height