Old school anime dilema!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SushiSweetie]

Ok so I have this friend that is DESPERATELY trying to find this anime that he used to watch when he was a kid (keep in mind he is 22 now and he used to watch this around the 6th grade or so) He has NO IDEA what channel it was on but this is all he said he could remember: There was two guys one with dark brown hair and at the end they were in this big room battling a dragon and one of the guys was about to die and the other guy handed him some crystals/jewels and they like gave the dieing guy strength like steroids or something...beefed him up ya know? and he said he also remembered they would sometimes put these crystals/jewels in the backs of their hands or other various body parts and absorb them or something and become strong?? I dunno he said that is all he can remember other than the fight scenes were really epic....he can just picture them and not really describe them. Sound familiar to anyone??? Please feel free to throw me any suggestions that I can pass off to him! Someone on another site already suggested Kiba and thats not it, as that was made in 2006 and this one he is trying to remember was probably made back in the 90's! Please help me help him!

[JackIsLost]

dragons, dark hair = hundreds of anime alone. maybe it was popeye the sailor man. jewels were spinach and as to putting it in the back of the hand, maybe popeyes head is so deformed it looked like a hand. battles were epic too. can he draw a picture of what a character was wearing? what the dragon looked like?