of three, and were assigned a genin to lead them on a mission against the other teams. Chōji was assigned to lead a team of three academy students; Dango, Ame and Choco. On route, Chōji imparted to them the importance of being able to acquire food during a mission, introducing a plant called the "Ninja-Aid Plant", which is edible and nutritious. Chōji even stopped one of his team from eating the wrong plant, the "Ninja Blockage Plant", even though it looked similar to the Ninja-Aid Plant, it was in fact noxious, and Chōji identified the difference between their leaves.

In the anime, Chōji helped rescue Ayame, the daughter of Teuchi, from cooking-nin from the Land of Lightning. Chōji knew of them and explained to Naruto and Sakura that theirher away with Chōji. The two were captured, but Shikamaru and several other ninja saved them.

In the anime, about two years after Naruto left the village with Jiraiya for training, Konoha decided to host an early Chūnin Exams alongside Sunagakure. Later, as Team Asuma began discussing their joining the exams, it became noted that with Shikamaru already a chūnin and therefore ineligible to join, it left the rest of the team short. Ino came up with the idea of having Sakura be their team's third member.[15] After Sakura accepted to join the team, once entering the exams, Chōji and his team-mates were randomly split into different rooms to take the written test. He was placed in room 1 with Hinata and Neji. On a monitor, Shikamaru, as proctor,