The drop: the rule that makes it a different game

Try it on the board

Capturing recruits

A captured piece does not leave the game. It goes to your hand (駒台 komadai, the stand beside the board) and becomes yours. On any later turn, instead of moving a piece on the board, you may take one from your hand and place it on any empty square, pointing your way.

This is why shogi tiles have no colour and only a facing. A piece has to be able to change sides mid-game, and a white bishop that suddenly belongs to Black would need repainting. Turn the tile around instead.

What a drop is and is not

A drop is a whole move - you drop or you move, never both. It lands on an empty square only, so a drop can never capture, though it very often gives check. The piece arrives unpromoted, even if you captured it in its promoted form: a Dragon King you take comes back to you as a plain rook.

It also arrives unable to promote on the spot. Once it has made a normal move afterwards, and that move touches the zone, it promotes like anything else.

Why your endgame intuition is now wrong

The total material on the board never falls. There is no simplification, no trading into a won ending, no opposite-coloured-bishop fortress, no "I am a piece up, let me exchange everything". Every trade you make hands your opponent a piece to drop next to your king.

The practical consequence is that attacks accelerate instead of running out of steam - each capture arms the attacker for the next move - and that a lost-looking position can turn on one drop. Games end in mate, and they end faster than chess games, not slower.