What is Animal Shogi?

Animal Shogi (dobutsu shogi) is a shogi variant for children on a 3x4 board, designed in 2008 by professional shogi player Madoka Kitao. Each side has a lion, a giraffe, an elephant, and a chick. You win by catching the other lion or by walking your own lion to the far row. Captured pieces drop back into play, just as in full shogi.

What age is Animal Shogi for?

The game was designed so that children around four or five can play. The commercial pieces carry dots showing where each animal can move, so no reading is needed. Adults are not safe, though: the game has real tactics, and a prepared child beats a casual grown-up regularly.

Has Animal Shogi been solved?

Yes. In 2009 Tetsuro Tanaka computed the full game: with perfect play the second player wins, in at most 78 moves. In human games this means nothing in practice. Nobody plays perfectly, and the game stays sharp and fun.

What is the try rule in Animal Shogi?

Besides catching the lion, you can win by moving your own lion onto the far row. The catch: the square you land on must be safe. If an enemy piece could capture your lion there, the move does not win, and your opponent will usually take the lion next turn.

Is Animal Shogi a good way to learn real shogi?

It is the standard on-ramp. Drops, promotion, and thinking about king safety are all present in miniature. Once the ideas feel natural, minishogi adds sliding pieces and checkmate on a 5x5 board, and from there the full 9x9 game is a short step.

Animal Shogi

Animal Shogi (dobutsu shogi, sold in English as "Let's Catch the Lion!") is shogi shrunk to a 3x4 board with four animal pieces per side. Catch the other lion, or walk your own lion to the far row, and you win. Play it right here, free, against the computer or a friend.

What Animal Shogi is

Animal Shogi was designed in 2008 by Madoka Kitao, a professional shogi player, to bring young children into the game. The commercial set draws the pieces as friendly animals with dots marking their moves, so a four-year-old can play without reading a word. Do not confuse cute with shallow. The game has been fully solved by computer (Tetsuro Tanaka, 2009: the second player wins with perfect play, in up to 78 moves), and between humans it stays tense to the last capture.

Our board uses plain emoji animals rather than the official artwork, which belongs to its illustrator. The rules are the standard ones.

The rules in full

The board is 3 columns by 4 rows. Each player starts with four pieces on their side: the lion in the middle of the back row, the giraffe on its right, the elephant on its left, and the chick one square ahead of the lion.

Lion (the king): one square in any direction.
Giraffe: one square up, down, left, or right.
Elephant: one square diagonally.
Chick: one square straight ahead.
Hen: when your chick reaches the far row by moving, it flips into a hen, which moves one square any way except diagonally backward. The same move a gold general makes in full shogi.

Captures work like shogi: a piece you take joins your hand, and on a later turn you may drop it on any empty square as your own. A captured hen goes back to being a chick. None of big shogi's drop restrictions apply here. You may even drop a chick on the far row, where it can never move again, which is legal and almost always a bad idea.

There are two ways to win:

Catch the lion. Capture it and the game ends.
The try rule. Move your own lion onto the far row. If the square is safe, you win on the spot. If an enemy piece attacks that square, there is no win, and the lion is usually captured next turn.

If the same position repeats three times, the game is a draw. That is the whole rulebook.

Why it teaches real shogi

Every idea that makes shogi shogi is here in miniature. Captured pieces return as drops, so material never leaves the game and no lead is ever safe. The chick promotes, so you learn to push humble pieces toward the far side. And with twelve squares and no place to hide, you learn fast that the lion's safety is worth more than any capture. Children who start here already think in drops by the time they meet the full game, which is the hardest habit for chess players to build.

Where to go next

When the board starts feeling small, move up one step at a time.Minishogi keeps games short but adds sliding rooks and bishops, real promotion choices, and checkmate on a 5x5 board. After that, thefull shogi lesson takes about an hour, and the 9x9 board is free to play here any time. The whole family tree, from this 12-square game up to a 1,296 square monster, is on theshogi variants page.

FAQ

What is Animal Shogi?
Animal Shogi (dobutsu shogi) is a shogi variant for children on a 3x4 board, designed in 2008 by professional shogi player Madoka Kitao. Each side has a lion, a giraffe, an elephant, and a chick. You win by catching the other lion or by walking your own lion to the far row. Captured pieces drop back into play, just as in full shogi.
What age is Animal Shogi for?
The game was designed so that children around four or five can play. The commercial pieces carry dots showing where each animal can move, so no reading is needed. Adults are not safe, though: the game has real tactics, and a prepared child beats a casual grown-up regularly.
Has Animal Shogi been solved?
Yes. In 2009 Tetsuro Tanaka computed the full game: with perfect play the second player wins, in at most 78 moves. In human games this means nothing in practice. Nobody plays perfectly, and the game stays sharp and fun.
What is the try rule in Animal Shogi?
Besides catching the lion, you can win by moving your own lion onto the far row. The catch: the square you land on must be safe. If an enemy piece could capture your lion there, the move does not win, and your opponent will usually take the lion next turn.
Is Animal Shogi a good way to learn real shogi?
It is the standard on-ramp. Drops, promotion, and thinking about king safety are all present in miniature. Once the ideas feel natural, minishogi adds sliding pieces and checkmate on a 5x5 board, and from there the full 9x9 game is a short step.