Usually, Bowser is stated by a few sources to be 8'7" (2.6162 m) tall, but seeing as how his height mostly fluctuates from game to game, I decided to measure just how tall he is based upon his appearances. For this, the conditions are...
- To measure Bowser as he is in the main platforming series, to avoid combing through hundreds of games
- To measure Bowser as he is standing in-game, not as he stands in a T-pose
- To measure Bowser to the top of his head, not his horns or shell
- To exclude Super Bowser, as his size is explicitly far larger than normal
Super Mario Bros.[]
In Super Mario Bros., Bowser and Mario are the same height, both standing 82 px tall. Since Mario is 1.55 m tall, this makes Bowser 1.55 m tall as well.
Super Mario Bros. 3[]
In Super Mario Bros. 3, Bowser is 1.9375 m tall, being 80 px tall to Mario's 64 px.
Super Mario 64/Super Mario 64 DS[]
It's at this point that heights are going to start getting approximate. Modern games don't use solid sprites I can measure off of, and rarely is the camera in a 3D game at the perfect flat angle needed to accurately measure anything.
Regardless, Mario stands at 115 px tall while Bowser stands at 250 px. Rounding down since Mario is slightly in the background, this makes Bowser approximately 3.3695652174 m in height.
New Super Mario Bros.[]
Bowser stands around 150 px tall, while Mario is just 90x px tall. This makes Bowser about 2.5833333333 m in height, which is actually pretty close to 8 ft 7 in.
Super Mario Galaxy[]
This game doesn't have many good instances to scale Mario and Bowser between, but we can still get an approximate.
As you can see, Mario is around the height of one of those floor tiles, likely a bit less. Bowser himself is about 2.25x the height of said floor tiles, which would place him at 3.4875 m tall.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii[]
In this game, Mario stands at about 64 px, while Bowser is 136 px tall. This makes Bowser around 3.29375 m in height.
Super Mario 3D Land[]
In this game, Mario stands at 106 px while Bowser stands at 265 px, making him 3.875 m in height. It should be noted that the camera angle isn't perfect here, however, so this is just an approximation that gets as close as I could measure.
New Super Mario Bros. 2[]
Here Mario is standing at 100 px tall, while Bowser is 170 px. This makes Bowser 2.635 m tall, making him just slightly taller than 8 ft 7 in.
New Super Mario Bros. U[]
Mario is 70 px tall, while Bowser is 130 px tall. Using this ratio, Bowser is about 2.8785714286 m tall in this game.
Super Mario 3D World[]
Like Super Mario Galaxy, this is another game we're going to have to approximate.
Comparing Bowser to the bridge he's standing on, he's apparently about 0.55x as tall as it is wide. Comparing Mario to that same bridge shows that, by contrast, the plumber is only around 0.18x as tall as it is wide.
This means Bowser is around 3~x taller than Mario, or about 4.5 m in height.
Super Mario Maker[]
Bowser's height slightly varies depending on which course theme you use, but in general, it seems to match the height Bowser has in the game that the course theme is based on.
The one unique Bowser in Super Mario Maker is the Bowser that appears in the Super Mario World theme, which, if you remember, wasn't measurable due to Bowser not appearing outside of his Koopa Clown Car. So really, this isn't Bowser's height "in Super Mario Maker", as he doesn't have an original height there. This is "Bowser's height in Super Mario World if he were to leave his Koopa Clown Car".
In the Super Mario World theme Bowser is about 1.28x as tall as Mario, counting the pixels that make up their sprites. This translates to 1.984 m.
Super Mario Run[]
Mario is about 38 px tall, while Bowser is around 44 px tall. This makes him a measly 1.7947368421 m in height, one of his shortest depictions so far.
Super Mario Odyssey[]
Our last game to go over. As I said, I'm not measuring him to his T-pose height, but rather his "natural" height that he usually rests at.
In Odyssey, that turns out to be 6.2 m, as Bowser is 412 px tall to Mario's 103 px.
Results[]
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario Bros.) - 1.55 m (5 ft 1 in)
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario Bros. 3) - 1.9375 m (6 ft 4¼ in)
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario 64/DS) - 3.3695652174 m (11 ft ⅝ in)
- Bowser's Height (New Super Mario Bros.) - 2.5833333333 (8 ft 5¾ in)
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario Galaxy) - 3.4875 m (11 ft 5¼ in)
- Bowser's Height (New Super Mario Bros. Wii) - 3.29375 m (10 ft 9⅝ in)
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario 3D Land) - 3.875 m (12 ft 8½ in)
- Bowser's Height (New Super Mario Bros. 2) - 2.635 m (8ft 7¾ in)
- Bowser's Height (New Super Mario Bros. U) - 2.8785714286 m (9ft 5⅜ in)
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario 3D World) - 4.5 m
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario Maker/Super Mario World) - 1.984 m (6 ft 6 in)
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario Run) - 1.7947368421 m
- Bowser's Height (Super Mario Odyssey) - 6.2 m