Chu Shogi Puzzle #1

This is a very tricky one. Gote (white) to move. I used 龙 instead of 竜 (dragon king) on 5c. It's almost a mate, but not quite. Defend as best as you can. Puzzle length: 9 moves (17 ply)

Comment 1 move at a time (or with premoves), and I'll respond with another diagram.

A lot of side lines to consider. I've checked over 40 variations, so my solution should be correct.

What piece is on 8c?

8c is an eagle, so Gote's king is attacked. I remember taking over 2 days to play DK-8c+ (from 8l; not a capture either).

The only moves to consider are K - 5a and K - 7a

What game is this 

Right. One leads to the king getting forcibly captured. The other continues further. Would you prefer that I reveal the first move response to either choice, or do you prefer to solve it by yourself?

K - 5a is followed by Ln - 6c, with a pinned BT on 5b so that goes really quick.

So I'll play K - 7a.

Just found a refutation to my initial intended solution. Becomes rather boring after that.

Actually, K-7a is met with DH-1g, and there is no stopping that. K-5a is followed up by SE-6c. If we follow your idea, K-5a Ln-6c DKx6c SEx6c Ph-5d seems simplest - no mate.

K-7a DH-1g (offering the lion for king) Ln-7d (offering the lion to stop mate) DKx5b (with discovered check, refusing the lion) DK-6b DKx6b Lnx6b DHx6b+ Phx6b Ln-5c mate

K-7a (with best defense, mate in 25...) DH-1g Ph-6b DKx6b BTx6b DHx6b+ DKx6b SE-5c K-7b SEx!6b BT-7c B-4f K-8b Ln-6c K-9b Lnx7c K-10a Lnx8a K-11b SE-6b K-11c B-9a+ K-10d Ln-8c K-11c Ln-9b mate [Epic king chase variation]

It's called chu shogi, which is a variant of shogi (the Japanese version of chess). 

I encourage you to play out the mate in 25 line. It looks epic 😃

The rules can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_shogi

You have the best chance of finding live opponents here: http://81dojo.com/client144.html

Occasionally people play here: https://sdin.jp/en/browser/board/chushogi/

Or by correspondence on these forums.

Ok I had missed the presence of the DK on 6e.

Can you explain the choice to represent the DK this way?That symbol is new to me.

I wanted to clearly show which pieces are the promoted version with semi-cursive font, so there would be no need to change colour, which could confuse some people. Traditionally, the cursive for 王 was used for promoted version of 竜, but I thought that would be confusing for most people. 

The only suitable font I found was for simplified Chinese characters, so I just took the character for dragon, which is 龙. If you look close enough, it could pass for a cursive of 龍, which is the character it was simplified from anyways.

OK but the one on 5c is an unpromoted DK, correct?

5c - DK, promoted from a R

6e - unpromoted DK

B - 4f is not possible. There is no Bishop looking at 4f.