Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-27312496-20181203203901/@comment-4010415-20181207064335

Yeah, once you get really old, your body starts to compress, and you start to slouch over at least a little, so you literally shrink a little bit and also make yourself look shorter by slouching.

Anime and other animated shows just have a tendency to exaggerate this fact of life.

And yeah, arthritis is a hell of a thing, especially if you have rheumatoid arthritis, which has a tendency to deform the joints that it affects. I know osteoarthritis can cause nodes/nodules in joints, but rheumatoid arthritis straightup deforms them beyond just nodules.