Fire Daimyō

Small, rounded eyes with dark pupils sit in his face, and he wears the ceremonial headpiece that marks the office of a daimyō.

Wavering and quick to change his mind, the Fire Daimyō lets bias and outside pressure steer him. Faced with urgent choices, he hands the thinking to his advisers and simply backs whoever argues best. He takes a personal shine to Jiraiya and once pushes for him to lead Konoha, and Kakashi's standing impresses him too. Yet he bends with the wind: during a crisis election he leans first on Shikaku Nara's counsel and then folds entirely to Danzō's hardline reasoning.

In the anime, a Konoha council gathers after Hiruzen Sarutobi resigns as Third Hokage. Danzō presses for Orochimaru to take the seat, but Hiruzen warns that the man has grown hungry for power and shows a darker streak. The vote lands unanimously on Minato Namikaze, with only Danzō opposed. When the Third later dies, the daimyō is drawn into an emergency meeting to name a successor, and the gathering settles on Jiraiya.

After Pain levels Konoha, the daimyō convenes another discussion. Hesitant to push the comatose Tsunade aside, he warms to Shikaku Nara's suggestion of Kakashi, valuing him as the son of the White Fang and a pupil of the Fourth. Danzō counters that the very ideals passed to Kakashi bred Konoha's troubles, from the village's earlier ruin to Sasuke's defection, and puts himself forward instead. Swayed once more, the daimyō names Danzō the candidate for Sixth Hokage on the eve of the Five Kage Summit.

Danzō's death at Sasuke's hands undoes that plan. Briefed on the newly formed Allied Shinobi Forces, the Fire Daimyō and his counterparts from the great nations bless the alliance. He is set to install Kakashi at last when word arrives that Tsunade has woken, and the appointment is shelved.

As the Fourth Shinobi World War begins, the five rulers are moved into a guarded refuge. Untroubled by the confinement, he muses over what to call the medals meant to honor the shinobi afterward. One night the group tires itself out over mahjong and cards; roused by a messenger reporting a blinding light in the sky, they are all swept into the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Naruto and Sasuke free him and the rest of the world once the war ends.

In the aftermath, a thrown kunai nearly strikes him at a Konoha hot spring, putting his Anbu guard on edge. When the Sixth Hokage meets him to settle the annual budget and requests extra money for Sakura Haruno's mental health program for children, Kido Tsumiki argues the funds should reinforce the Anbu instead; the daimyō defers to Homura Mitokado, who sides with Kido. In the later era, the business-minded Ikkyū Madoka takes his place. The film The Will of Fire presents him only in silhouette, harder-edged and edging toward paranoia: after the rogue ninja Hiruko declares war on the great nations, the daimyō, noting Hiruko's Konoha origins, summons Tsunade to answer for her push to form a shinobi alliance, suspects a possible coup, and orders her to resolve the matter at once or see Konoha destroyed.