I had a feeling you were going to make that comment about the commander. There isn't really an equivalent to him in Naruto so therefore, respective to the series, a Kage death is it's equivalent. If the Sage of the 6 paths were still alive, it'd be another story. The Kages are more significant than you give them credit for. An entire village (really a ninja nation) is affected by it and if the successor is weaker, they take a huge hit in power against the other rival villages. Also Madara is a special exception, he's one of the two strongest ninjas outside the sage of 6 paths to ever exist. Only the Sage and the First Hokage were stronger. I'm sure any other character alive still respects them, otherwise why didn't Tobi just wipe them out at the summit? What would have really happened to SS if the Master Commander died?(not counting how people would feel, just how it impact their ability to defend) He's barely done shit. All the greatest villains were dealt with by Ichigo and friends plus the commanders. This final arc should hopefully change that but yeah...
The Master Commander's death would only have one significance for the reader, his power level. He's that category two I mentioned previously. He is simply fodder to show how strong the enemy really is because again, he hasn't done shit in this series and you yourself just mentioned how Kubo never fleshed him out. He's a boss power wise, that's it. These Kages from the other villages are in the exact same boat. You know they are beasts because of their status. Actually, they all have more fleshing out than the Master Commander at least. I still won't argue it's enough to care about them though but they are the same as the Commander for Naruto's world. I agree that the Master Commander is more significant if you really had to compare the two because he's without equal in Bleach thus far whereas the Kages have each other as comparable powers but that doesn't change the fact that they leave the same impact for a Naruto reader because it's all just based on the power level.
Hmm, well, you just basically said that there isn't an equivalent to The CC, so yeah, that's fine.
That's basically what I was saying. I only add that saying "There's no comparable thing, so we'll just use the next thing down" isn't really a viable stance for me. I agree with you, if the Sage of The 6th Paths was alive, then there's the equivalent. But he isn't there so...
Now, Kages are important to the lore. Certainly. Their title alone holds weight, but I believe that Kishimoto has done a terrible job of implementing that title for
those current characters that hold the title. I am focusing on: Tsunade, A, Oonoki, Gaara, and Mei (had to google her name)...I am not simply talking about the titles here. How much weight do those particular characters hold within the story? Hashirama, Sarutobi, Minato? Those three were people whose names held weight not just in their village, but in the ninja world. These are people whose deaths I would consider comparable, because after showing their hands, they were considered forces unrivaled. What about Tsunade? Who really thinks of Tsunade as a formidable force that is unmatched by most? When she went out, she was replaced by someone (Danzo), and then as Hokage, he was killed by Sasuke. That is what I mean by the fact that these kages don't seem to be these axes of power that they should be given the characters that Kishimoto has shown us (at the present time). Of course, Sarutobi did seem to be that way, but at that time there was only one other kage we knew about (oh, and what happened to him...?).
Here's an example of what I'm talking about: The Kage summit. This is supposed to be where the world's greatest powers are coming together, and this is supposed to be known around the ninja world. They are speaking on important matters. They had their personal guards with them, and even the support of other powers (samurai, I believe they were). So, tell me why Sasuke is able to just waltz up in there like he owns the place? Okay, maybe he can infiltrate, infiltration happens sometimes. But why the hell did all of the kage need to get involved? They are supposed to be at the top of the world, Sasuke is small time, they should have all looked at the little guy, said "who the fuck is this kid" and continued their meeting and let their guards take out the trash.
Instead, they are all in an upheaval, one of the kages fucking runs for it, the other is swooning over the guy and one of them is protecting the fucker. What the hell is this shit? Do you know what this does for a reader? It tells me that they aren't shit. Do you really believe that a roundtable with Hashirama and the four kages of the time would have let some bullshit like that happen? Anyway, that's my point: The kages don't hold the weight that they should. To add insult to injury, Zetsu (who is now proven to be fodder, who was killed by one swipe of Sasuke's sword) basically said "these kages aren't shit!"...and why didn't Tobi wipe them out at the summit? I don't really know myself. Why didn't Tobi take Naruto and put him in his time-space thingy when he met him after Naruto hyperventilated (over Sasuke)? It's because Tobi is an idiot villain.
As far as the whole fleshing out of the characters, I don't think it's fair to use comparisons there. Usually, when there is a supreme power in the world of the story, we don't really get their story until they are fighting to the death and showing their entire hand to all the readers. With The CC, we have not seen him go all out. Yes, he fought Aizen (like a boss, I might add) and the results of that are subjective (I personally thought it was a fair way to deal with the whole "how do I let my protagonist shine when I've got this badass right here" problem) but we did not see him show his cards in the slightest. He couldn't even go Shikai. As such, we've only seen glimpses of what he's capable of, and the bit that we've seen has been impressive.
On the other hand, we have now exhausted what these particular kages can do, Kishimoto has shown us their hands. I don't know about you, but given the history of what a kage is
supposed to be, I'm not particularly impressed. In this war alone, we have two of the kages going to go stop Naruto and one of them switches sides immediately and the other one bends to Naruto's will after only 5 minutes. The Mizukage hasn't done anything (except have her entire village usurped by an Akatsuki prior to this war). Oonoki and Gaara, TWO KAGE, needed Naruto's help to defeat a previous kage. Let's take a look at what Tsunade has done prior to the war: She exhausted her entire chakra reserve in an
attempt to save the village. Gaara got defeated by someone that Sasuke defeated. Raikage got his boxers in a bunch in an
attempt to kill Sasuke. And he didn't. The other two were never shown prior to the war.
I do really believe that when the Captain Commander shows all of his cards, we will all know it. He was a badass in the FKT arc without a fucking sword.
