>>47590051>>47590072There is another piece of circumstantial evidence that suggests a tie between the lion and Silver, and it's in a rather odd place.
Basically, if you look at Ho-oh's pose in the beta title screen, it's making a pose that seems to evoke the kanji for gold, its feet representing the lower strokes of the kanji and the spread wings representing the upper parts of it.
Meanwhile, the kanji for Silver is subtly stylized to resemble some kind of fanged quadrupedal monster with a bunch of stuff on its back facing to the left. The komainu lion matches this stylized logo pretty well, this also explaining why it has so much fur on its back. Furthermore, in the Japanese logo for Soul Silver, the kanji for Silver instead has an uncanny resemblance to Lugia seen from the side with its wings held high, similar to its overworld sprite from GSC.
