This will be the last Inaba genre for now. I've found several hidden gems within the collection (including one that I'm saving for something more official!), but in general, his more obscure genres are difficult to construct puzzles for. Today's style was no different -- individual clues often aren't powerful by themselves, but every clue taken together creates a powerful effect, so you really need to carefully choose the numbers to make the solve work. That said, today's puzzle might actually be my favorite of all the Inaba types so far. Each clue can only see a limited distance away, but the interactions are more subtle than you might think.
This genre is sometimes called "Sandwich" by English speaking sources, bu that name is a bit silly, so I've chosen to go with its Japanese name "Santoitchi" instead. Apparently, "san to ichi" translates to "three and one" in Japanese, which fits the rules better. I don't know where the extra t came from, but oh well. Blame Google Translate.
Rules: Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and divide the remaining unshaded cells into three-cell regions. Each region must contain exactly one numbered cell, which indicates how many shaded cells the region is orthogonally adjacent to.
Today's puzzles are about medium difficulty, with the second one harder than the first. In particular, the second grid focuses less on large clues and more on small numbers, which greatly affects the solve.
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