This is an entry for Fortnightly Topic Challenge #44: Introduce a new grid deduction genre to the community
This is a Sashigane puzzle, where you divide the grid into L shapes.
Rules taken from Nikoli:
- Divide the grid into L shaped blocks - one block wide. All blocks must be L shaped.
- Cells with open circles form the knee (bend) in a block.
- The number in an open circle shows the number of cells in its block. Open circles without numbers may have any number of cells.
- Cells with arrows form one end of its block, the arrow points towards the knee of this block.
- The number of marks in a block (arrows or open circles) may be 0, 1, 2, or 3.
An example puzzle and its solution, taken from Nikoli:
Now, solve this puzzle:
Here is the puzzle in a playable form. The link leads to a puzz.link editor (which has a timer, if you care about that).
First answer with a fully-explained logical solution path gets the checkmark.
CSV version:
,,,,,,◯,,←,
,4,,,◯,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,←,,,
,,,5,,5,,5,,
,,5,,5,,5,,,
,,,←,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,◯,,,4,
,↑,,◯,,,,,,