10. A Well Developed Romance
The Wolverine miniseries is all about Wolverine coming to Japan to prevent his love, Mariko Yashida, from marrying another man. Wolverine and Mariko grew a love for each other over a number of Uncanny X-Men issues prior to the miniseries. It has been confirmed that the film takes place after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. There were no indications that Wolverine knew Mariko in the original X-Men film series, so the relationship between the two will need to be developed for the first time in The Wolverine. Mariko is a very interesting woman in her own right. She is the daughter of the crimelord Shingen Yashida, and the half-sister of the mutant Kenuichio Harada, better known as the Silver Samurai. Unlike her father and brother, she has a very strong moral code. This includes a strong sense of duty to her family, demonstrated by her willingness to marry an abusive man at her fathers request. She was able to see something in Wolverine that not even the other X-Men, or Wolverine himself, could see, and so she loved him. It is essential that the romance between Wolverine and Mariko is established early in the film to give Wolverine the motivation to do all of the things that he needs to do.