Why is Castlevania called Akumajo Dracula in Japan?

The Japanese title translates literally as Demon Castle Dracula. Heidkamp's reported rendering was 'Dracula Satanic Castle,' and the religious charge of his translation, in an era when Nintendo of America's content policies were scrubbing blood and religious imagery from games, was enough to kill it for the international release. The rename is consistently credited to Heidkamp across the sources, including Chris Kohler's reporting in Power-Up, though whether he personally coined the word or set the rename in motion is less certain, so this page credits him with the rename rather than swearing he invented the syllables alone. Later retellings sometimes blame a general satanic panic; the documented reason is narrower: one executive's discomfort with one title.

Nothing about the Japanese title needed fixing at home, so Akumajo Dracula stayed on Japanese boxes for decades, while the West built the Castlevania brand. The two titles still meet on collector shelves today, which is why a Japanese box and an American box of the same game can look like two different series.