I'm doing a comic thats in a kind of manga style and uses concepts from Japanese Mythology, along with taking a lot of visuals from things like Okami and having ninjas, because ninjas are great.

The thing is though, where it's set isn't meant to be japan, more a mish-mash of places along with a lot of my own ideas so I'm at kind of an issue with naming things like characters and places.

Some of the characters have japanese names I picked out but I don't know whether to continue that trend with things like groups, towns, landmarks etc because I don't personally know japanese and I'm worried that I'll either make a hash of ordering the words into something laughably bad or that I'd have to constantly put notes down in the margin like "this means this".

Alternatively, I don't know whether having town names in english would fit so well.

So what do you guys think? Should I go the whole hog with the naming and put more research into it or just cut it out? Or reach some kind of common ground? How much is too much?

when youre making up Japanese names dont use tottaly BS names like kanashii kurasu. normal people dont have names like that. a lot of japanese names meaning is determined by the kanji used and not the actual sound of the name.

Nothing wrong with research. But if it's a mishmash of cultures you'll have to research the other cultures equally, and it'd probably be easier to just make up a new culture in a new land.

I've been sticking to mainly first names for the characters rather than full names to avoid anything that sounds particularly strange, although I am debating whether theme naming is entirely a good thing or not.

I think you should use Japanese for the place names since to an English speaking demographic they will sound more exotic and it will appeal to the more fluent readers as they will understand the meaning behind the name. Works on two levels. Also it will probably take the same amount of work inventing places as it would combining words.
However, with the people it might be easier to use the honourifics system but have the names built around the way the speak. Rephrase that: your characters are anthropamorphic animals so accommodating their usual noises into their names or even the place names might help make it more original. For example, cats' word for money could be 'mewlah'. XD

Hope this is more helpful.