til there used to be a shogi piece called the 'drunken elephant' (suizo). If the piece was promoted, it would be called the prince (taishi/ouji) and served a similar function to the king (ou) in the sense that the match would not end even with the king's capture as long as the prince is present.

The suizo was placed in the middle file in front of each player's king piece. Also surprised to find out that shogi pieces were very thin before. I wonder how it feels to pick them up 😅