Gaaaah I´ve been wanting this game for ages, I even beat DOS a second time to fill the gap. I don´t want to play it in Japanese though - I noticed the screens have English text for the items - does the J version have the option to play in English, or are those (U) preview screens?
Those screens are from the USA version. Looking at this screen shot of the JPN version it looks like there are some English options in the menu. The last Castlevania I was able to use my JPN save on the USA version aswell. I hope this is the same