I've
saved my favorite for last. In the first panel
of this scene from Wolverine 171 (February 2002;
Writer: Frank Tieri, Artist: Sean Chen), framed
by those ever-blossoming cherry trees, we see a
building that anyone even slightly familiar with
Japanese architecture should recognize as a castle.
Never mind that any castles
that exist in Japan nowadays are museums, and most
of them are recent reconstructions of the originals.
This one turns out to have a huge Buddha in it.
A Buddha in a castle?
Since this is a "nuff
said!" issue (one month during which nearly all
Marvel comics were
without dialog),
we can see Tieri's instructions to Chen in the
back of the book, and lo and behold, Tieri asked
Chen to draw
a temple! THIS IS NOT A TEMPLE! And even if it were, you'd
never see a Japanese temple with a Buddha statue
sitting out in the middle of an empty room; it
would be behind an altar, surrounded by a lot of
other Buddhist artifacts, completely out of reach
of the public, who would normally just throw
some coins in the bin and briefly bow, not kneel.
Anyway, religion is hardly a driving force in modern
Japanese society; you'd have trouble finding
a less religious country. But the people who do
worship a god do not do so in castles!
In the January
2003 issue of Writers Digest, author
Ridley Pearson wrote, "Remember:
if you're writing about airplanes, chances
are pilots will read it. If you're writing about
rock music, chances are a rock musician will read
it. People will know if you've done your
homework or not."
Marvel artists and writers:
before you do any more Japan stories, it's time to hit the books.
I've
saved my favorite for last. In the first panel
of this scene from Wolverine 171 (February 2002;
Writer: Frank Tieri, Artist: Sean Chen), framed
by those ever-blossoming cherry trees, we see a
building that anyone even slightly familiar with
Japanese architecture should recognize as a castle. 
dialog),
we can see Tieri's instructions to Chen in the
back of the book, and lo and behold, Tieri asked
Chen to draw
a temple! THIS IS NOT A TEMPLE! And even if it were, you'd
never see a Japanese temple with a Buddha statue
sitting out in the middle of an empty room; it
would be behind an altar, surrounded by a lot of
other Buddhist artifacts, completely out of reach
of the public, who would normally just throw
some coins in the bin and briefly bow, not kneel.
Anyway, religion is hardly a driving force in modern
Japanese society; you'd have trouble finding
a less religious country. But the people who do
worship a god do not do so in castles!