Single Comment

It struck me when I first saw this variant that theming a Shogi variant on whales was rather tasteless, for the reasons given by george Duke in previous comments. Even looking beyond that I feel that whales, as huge animals that travel still huger distances over the oceans, do not make a particularly good theme for a small variant full of short-range pieces. The game might have been far better received without the whale theme, and all the pieces have other names in other context. The Dolphin, Killer Whale, and White Whale are long-established standard Shogi pieces, and if their Japanese names are not to your taste my Man and Beast 01: Constitutional Characters suggests simpler English names for them. The rest have names in Man and Beast 12: Alternative Fronts and some also have Japanese names in large Shogi variants:

Whale Shogi name	Man and Beast name	Japanese name
Blue Whale	Coppergeneral	Dosho (Copper General)
Dolphin	Point	Fuhyo (Foot Soldier)
Grey Whale	Hunter
Humpback	Silvercoward	Old Monkey
Killer Whale	Chatelaine	Ryuo (Dragon King)
Narwhal	Snail
Porpoise	Wazirfiler
White Whale	King	varies between players

If anyone knows of Japanese names for the other three I'll happily add them to the table.