Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-28469898-20170228021817/@comment-734582-20170228212520

IMHO, a Kage ought to be smart enough, strong enough, with sufficient reserves and a sufficient collection of jutsu to handle most threats. Not everyone perfectly fits this defintion so i think the power/intellect combo is important enough. Also because we haven't quite seen all of every Kage's abilities.

Namikazenaruto9 wrote: I would like to point out that I feel both Shino and Neji should be in lower tier of kage level. I'm not entirely convinced Neji fits the bill. He's strong, sure. Close, too. But i haven't really seen stuff that made me think he's clearly kage level.

Shino is... pretty weird. His intellect is pretty high, it's just that his power is such a wild card. I simply have trouble imagining him fighting any kage and winning. But the whole bug thing (and animal users in general) make me think that standard ninja definitions don't really work on him, it's just too different from ninjutsu/taijutsu/genjutsu users.

Namikazenaruto9 wrote: also said ninja should be able to control his or her emotions. That would bring quite a few problems to the table.

Namikazenaruto9 wrote: Also for lee I am assuming he hasn't attained neither 7th gate(8th gate is opened based on ninja self rule) So he is mostly high jonin level and same with most off the others. Even if Lee has the 8th gate, it doesn't really matter. It's the intellect part that he lacks. IMHO the Kage level is something that should command some respect, it feels way too empty if it's just about power.

As to Sakura, i think that her relation with Sasuke skews the image of an otherwise fine kunoichi. Some moves can be excused (nothing can prepare you for trying to kill someone, she didn't know about Madara's Limbo as she was in Kamui's dimension). Her strength is considerable, as is her stamina (her seal did a lot to help that).

As to the question of range, i'm not sure why that isn't a problem with other melee users like Minato or the Raikage but it gets called out with Sakura.