AI Concept Art of a Chu Shogi Lion as a figurine pieceAI Concept Art of a Chu Shogi Lion piece
The lion is probably best known from the 12x12 shogi variant chu
shogi, and also appears in the larger shogi variants. Its Japanese name of 獅子 is transliterated as shishi. The 獅 character by itself means lion, and it is used for the abbreviated version of the piece. The 子 character by itself means child.
Movement
The movement of the lion is fairly complicated. When it moves, it has
the following options (see diagram below):
the lion can move directly to a green square, capturing or not.
the lion can move directly to any red square, leaping over intervening
pieces if necessary, capturing or not.
the lion can capture on a green square and return to its starting
square in the same move. Such a capture is called igui.
the lion can move to a green square and return to its starting square
in the same move, effectively passing.
the lion can capture on a green square, and then either move to any
adjacent green or red square, capturing or not. Thus the lion can
capture two pieces in one turn.
Remark
In chu shogi, additional rules exist concerning the lion:
If your opponent's lion is at least two squares from your own lion
and is protected by one of his own pieces, then it is illegal to capture
his lion with your lion.
If your lion is captured by a non-lion piece, it is illegal to
capture your opponent's lion on the following turn.
The exception to part one is as follows: if the two lions are two
squares apart, and there is an enemy piece in between them that is not a
go-between or a pawn, then it is legal to use your lion to capture the
enemy piece and the enemy lion in the same turn.
The above rules are designed to make lion trades difficult, thus making
it very likely that the lions will remain in the game until the very
end. These rules do not appear in dai shogi and larger variants
however, and thus should not be considered intrinsic properties of the
lion.
The lion is an extremely powerful piece. In chu shogi, it is easily the
most powerful piece on the board, much stronger than the free king,
which has the powers of a chess queen.
