The little shrine located near Ryo's home in Yamanose is a remarkably accurate representation of a typical "Inari" shrine found widely throughout Japan. I've made an image comparison of its features vs some actual shrines in the Yokosuka area I've come across when wandering around the area.
Full set of images in the blog post:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/10/shenmue-realism-yamanose-shrine.html
http://i.imgur.com/lG2QtUEm.png http://i.imgur.com/JxMT6Rtm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2IxMocLm.png http://i.imgur.com/QInuD2Lm.png
http://i.imgur.com/1eXFTTPl.jpg