So apparently All For One is 225 cm tall :: 7 feet 4.5 inches.
He’s a giant! He’s taller than All Might! By like 5 cm :: 1 inch, but still. Tall. It seems ridiculous, but in relative to other characters in the series, it seems to check out.
Specifically, let’s look at him and Shigaraki:
Shigaraki Tomura (175 cm :: 5 feet 9 inches) reaches AFO’s shoulders.
When he first picks up Tenko, the kid’s age 5. According to growth charts, the average height of a 5 year old is 109 cm :: 3 feet 7 inches.
Looks about right. Kid barely reaches the man’s waist.
(For comparison, here’s two other characters of similar age:
Eri, age 6: 110 cm :: 3 feet 7 inches
Kouta, age 5: 107 cm :: 3 feet 6 inches)
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So, how old would Tenko/Tomura be when he received all The Hands, according to the art in the manga?
Here, the kid has gotten taller, looking like he’s reaching AFO’s elbows. That puts him at around 140 cm :: 4 feet 7 inches.
Looking back at the growth chart, that’s the average height of a 10 year old.
Even if we give and/or take 5 cm to account for the uncertainty, it still puts Tenko/Tomura in the ranges of age 9 (133 cm :: 4 feet 4 inches) and age 11 (145 cm :: 4 feet 7 inches).
It seems in the scenes where Tenko was attack by the thugs/kills them/receives their hands/is given his new name ‘Shigaraki Tomura’ - all that occurred when Tenko/Tomura was around age 10?
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Which has super interesting implications.
Biggest one is that Tenko had held off destruction and killing and AFO’s coaxing for about 5 whole years. Tough kid. The itching, the instinct to use his quirk (for self-defense!), the grief and anger he was told to always keep inside his heart - he put up with it for years, until he couldn’t.
Other implications:
-AFO kept a kid that was… stubborn? wary? slow to warm up? didn’t let AFO “show him how to take his feelings of frustration and give them purpose?” - around for 5 years, relatively patient with cultivating that hatred (but what is 5 years to an immortal?). No wonder AFO had spares candidates, if this kid didn’t work out. And. He didn’t bestow the ‘Shigaraki’ name until he was certain he’d be getting his ‘Symbol of Fear’?
-AFO lets a 10 year old kid go walking alone around in the slums without concern that the kid would run away, get hurt, be discovered, etc.
-Tenko/Tomura had ditched his training gloves by age 10. Had learned to control his 5-finger touch quirk in those 5 years.
-What happened in those 5 years??? Assuming my observations and hypothesis above is correct.
-AFO is 225 cm :: over 7 feet tall, just walking around in a bespoke suit and hat, popping up all over the place. And All Might never caught notice of this weirdo?