Chouji’s first major appearance in the series was when Ino quite literally dragged him out to defend Sakura against the Sound Trio. Chouji was reluctant at first, owing to his own team’s weakness. However, a member of the Sound Trio ignited his rage when he called Chouji fat, a word that Chouji loathes and has forced people to strike from their vocabulary in his presence and come up with several euphemisms. Motivated, Chouji cried "HOORAY FOR CHUBBY", his preferred euphemism and expanded his body into a spherical shape, pulling his arms, legs and head inside his clothing and puffing out pure chakra like steam from a stovepipe from those openings. Rolling forwards, he became a devastating force that even managed to overpower Zaku’s pressure vents. Although the team didn’t successfully defeat the Sound Trio, they managed to delay them until backup arrived. Chouji would be drawn last in the preliminaries VS another member of the Sound Trio, having watched the previous fights with a nervous look. Despite his pre-fight pep talk and the promise of a Barbecue from Asuma, Chouji was no match for Dosu’s Melody Speaker implant, which channeled ear-splitting sounds directly through Chouji.
The fight did little damage to him permanently, with him resuming his usual activities and snacking heavily during his time spectating the finals of the Chuunin Exam. However, he succumbed to Kabuto’s massive sleep spell and with no Genjutsu training, slept through the joint Sand/Sound invasion.
Shortly after the invasion, Chouji would help retrieve the defecting Sasuke Uchiha. As the powerhouse of the team, Chouji was able to break through a tough chakra-reinforced rock prison set up by the Four Sounds’ Jiroubou, an equally round but far stronger fighter that was able to overpower the entire team. Chouji decided to take Jiroubou on head to head to allow the rest of the team to go on. Jiroubou was extremely skilled in earth-based Ninjutsu as well as hand to hand combat, using a brutal style of elbows, shoulder tackles and head butts. However, Chouji had come prepared with a case of 3 special pills, each one increasing his abilities as they were consumed. Chouji began to turn the tables when he wound a thread around himself, lining it with kunai and launched himself, becoming a spiky moving sphere that even pierced a stone wall Jiroubou set up. The kunai lodged into him, drawing blood, forcing him to activate his cursed seal.
Chouji then moved onto another set of moves in his arsenal, enlarging his limbs to immense sizes and swatting Jiroubou. As a c’oup de grace, Chouji expanded himself to a literal mountain-sized version of himself and crushed Jiroubou beneath his stomach. Infuriated, Jiroubou fully activated his seal to the second level, showing terrifying strength as he lifted up the gigantic Chouji with an unbelievable palm thrust, knocking him to normal size. Now fully empowered, Jiroubou’s strength was increased tenfold. Chouji knew that the last pill was reserved for suicidal situations, giving him immense power but by draining all his energy for it.
Jiroubou began to drain chakra directly from Chouji, complaining about what little he could absorb due to the amount expended in the previous moves. Still not satisfied, he then took the last of Chouji’s potato chips and began to insult him, pinning him down with a single foot. Calling his friends trash and him even bigger trash, he prepared to deliver the killing blow to the helpless "Fatass". Chouji’s mind wandered back to the days when he was rejected by others, but Shikamaru was quite willing to do little more than hang out, watch the clouds and eat with him. Apologizing, Chouji took the last pill, knowing he wouldn’t be able to join the others.
As Jiroubou hit the ground, Chouji stood up. Huge streams of chakra emerging from him in the intricate shape of butterfly wings. Chouji himself had now changed in size as the pill instantly converted all the fat in his body into chakra, leaving him slimmer. Now even stronger than Jiroubou, he proceeded to punish him for what he did, transferring all the newly-made chakra into his hand. Giving a first strike for stealing the last potato chip, Jiroubou was knocked onto his back. Pinning him down in a reversal of the previous situation, Chouji then told him that calling him fat was a big mistake… but calling his friends trash was unforgivable. Delivering a final punch to the body, Jiroubou lay flat, eyes and mouth wide open as the cursed seal receded. Jiroubou had made a fatal mistake and paid.
However, the stress of the match and the expenditure of physical energy had caused exhaustion in Chouji, forcing him to collapse. As he lost his balance and his feet gave out, he slumped against a tree and saw one final sign - an arrow indicating the direction his friends went and their faith that he would win the fight. It was the last thing he saw before collapsing silently. Luckily, Chouji was saved from death by a combination of Tsunade’s genius medical knowledge and the Nara clan’s refinement of the pills, for he would surely have died without help. The mission did little to change his appetite, however, with his old "big boned" figure returning soon after as he began to bulk up again, both to everyone’s relief and dismay. This would mark Chouji’s last appearance in part 1 of the manga.
In the anime-exclusive episodes, Chouji was instrumental in physically restraining two hugely strong criminals that had escaped from a correctional facility. With amazing strength, he enlarged the size of both his hands to the point that he could squeeze one of them in each, remarkable considering their girth. Working with his team-mates (minus Asuma), he was able to hold them until Tsunade arrived.
In part 2 of the manga, Chouji was seen with an all-new look, ditching the unusual forehead protector and growing a wild red mane of hair as well as now bearing samurai-like plates of armor. He was also now capable of increasing the size of his fists upon will. However, he arrived much later on as backup to stop two of Akatsuki’s invaders, but too late to stop them killing his teacher, Asuma. Swearing revenge, he chases after Hidan and Kakuzu, showcasing how hard he had been working by now refining his techniques and replacing the kunai with his own rock-hard spiked hair.
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