Single Comment

The problem with your idea of reducing the colours to two is that four colours really do reflect best the real relationship between the squares, as the rotations in my previous comment illustrate. In a game that does not use the diagonal move it makes sense for two of the Pawn's orthogonal moves to be capturing and two non-capturing, but which are which is entirely arbitrary. Associating one pair of these moves with the orthogonal same-level move and the other pair with the diagonal same-level move seems oddly asymmetric. Introduces Shogi generals is a great idea but you do need to use the true inter-level diagonal - which on closer examination I notice is the vertical move up or down two levels!