I certainly wouldn't want to play Chinese, Japanese or Korean chesses with some bizarre "western" characters, imagine playing chess with the pieces replaced with letters K, Q, B, etc. It's no more difficult to memorise oriental characters than it is to memorise quaint little statuettes. Fencer, for shogi pieces I hope you'll use the top ji only, as is done in books, newspapers, etc, not the full characters that appear on normal sets.