Maybe if the Tsuchinoko was the main villian in AoS, then yes, let Japan stay out of Castlevania, but that enemy was only present in one lonely room! I always see japanese references as easter eggs in the games, put there by the programers. Or, if I see Japanese buildings, or hear japanese music, or stay in an actual japanese place in a Castlevania game, then again yes, stay out of Castlevania. I don´t like at all the incursion of a japanese teenager in AoS in the beggining, but after playing for a few minutes, fighting skeletons, medusa´s heads, dragons, mermen, bats... I know that I am playing a Castlevania game. Sure, we have a boss in OoE that is a japanese vampire, but
again, is not relevant to the whole game, I believe.
I think we should see that references (in both classic CVs, metroidvanias and LoS) as easter eggs, because they not interfere in the main plot of the game.
I would say for their times that cv 1-4 were dark. I wasn't allows to play cv3 at my daycare center because some of the kids got scared by it. Haha. I had it confiscated until the end of the day!
It´s true. Also, I am sure that is a really bad idea to play CVII with little children at home, specificaly taking too much time to put the password with that creepy background music
. I will never do that again...