The Powerful Naruto Item That Was Hardly Used In The Original Series

In the annals of anime, there are many warriors who reign supreme. While many fighters, such as Goku from Dragonball and Saitama from One-Punch Man, can defeat even their strongest opponents with just their brute strength, other characters need a little help to emerge victorious. When looking across all of anime, there are certainly plenty of weapons to help the hero (or villain) win. 

As a proficient ninja, Naruto from the series of the same name is familiar with more than a few mystical objects that grant users untold levels of vigor from the Totsuka Blade to the Yata Mirror, but while those weapons got to at least have a prominent role in the series at some point, other objects haven't been as lucky. Sometimes an item gets introduced as this all-powerful entity, only to be promptly forgotten about without the audience ever seeing it again, and one of the most underutilized tools in all of Naruto would have to be the three colored pills. 

The three colored pills get some airtime in the Naruto manga as well as the film Naruto Shippūden the Movie: The Lost Tower, and in the original series, there's one main story arc fans associate them with. It all begins with episode #113, "Full Throttle Power! Chōji, Ablaze!" where Chōji engages in a fight to the death with Jirōbō so that the rest of his team can get away safely. In order to actually have a chance to win this conflict, Chōji eats the green spinach pill, which allots him increased strength by converting some of his body fat into extra chakra. 

Even with that power, it's not enough, so Chōji resorts to the second pill, which gives him even more of an edge. Even then, he still lacks the ability to take down Jirōbō for good. With no other options and recognizing that he's dead either way, Chōji consumes the final red chili pill, which increases his strength 100 times over but depletes all of his body's fat reserves. After defeating Jirōbō, Chōji starts to walk away but soon collapses with no energy left in his body. 

This is one of the few instances where we see the three colored pills in action, and to be honest, it kind of makes sense. While they are, indeed, powerful, it's more or less a guarantee the warrior is going to die upon eating all three pills. As fans of the anime know, the poison within the pills was able to be neutralized in this instance, allowing Chōji to get back on his feet and fight again, eventually learning how to summon the pills' power without actually taking them. Still, in a world as mystical as Naruto, there are probably better ways to get stronger in a pinch.