uncut ALF in Japan + in Germany

[Mish-Dawg]

I noticed that ALF has been re-airing in Japan, and that the 1st Season is set for release this month on DVD.

Since these will have the Japanese dub from the original Japanese airings (as well as the original English), I figured they might be the uncut versions since they'd have to use the versions from the Japanese airings. The Japanese Wikipedia ALF article makes a note of the US DVDs being cut, but not the Japanese DVDs or airings.

Since I live in Japan, I can rent the DVDs and check to see if they're the syndicated versions or not. Any idea of what scenes I should look for?

Sorry if this has been discussed already, I like ALF but haven't watched it since it aired on cable years ago, I was going to get the DVDs but decided not to after I heard they were the syndicated versions.

[Lastdaysofrain]

The run time is a good indicator. The syndicated cuts are usually 20-22 minutes long whereas the original aired episodes are usually 24-25 minutes.

[Mish-Dawg]

What's the runtime without credits? The Japanese credits might be different.

[Mish-Dawg]

Okay, the episode that aired this week was more like 24 minutes. The opening credits seemed a bit longer than what I remember, but not nearly enough to bring the time down to 22 minutes.

Now to see if the DVDs are uncut, I have them in my Discas (sorta like Netflix) queue, but as they're fairly recent releases it might be a couple weeks before I get the first one.

[LosingMyMind]

I will definitely buy this if it really is uncut. Please update as soon as you can.

[Charmebolzen]

The German releases (season 1 coming this week, season 2 in November) are confirmed to be uncut. So I guess the Japanese release will be uncut, too.

[Giles]

[snide circumcision joke removed]

[toddly6666]

Are the Alf uncut dvds versus the cut dvds the equivalent of Kingdom of Heaven Theatrical Cut versus Director's Cut dvd? ;)

I won't buy the Alf dvds, but I would like to say to someone "the imported Alf DVDs are the shit, you don't know what you are missing when you get those butchered NTSC Region 1 Alf dvds!"

[LosingMyMind]

Honestly, I just can't stand having something in my collection that is cut or censored. Doesn't matter what the title is, I'll go out of my way to get the original version.

I think I'll go with the German release for these.

[cultshock]

Unfortunately, any shots involving alien genitalia will have mosaic censoring on the Japanese DVDs. :down:

[Charmebolzen]

Update: Season 1 has been released in Germany yesterday and it is indeed uncut - except for one scene in one episode ("For Your Eyes Only"). It seems there were some license problems with the Chipmunks song.

Normally the scene starts with ALF and Jody listening to, and singing along with, the song. Here it starts with Jody taking her hands off of the cassette player immediately after she has stopped the music.

The episode is still a few minutes longer than on the US-DVD though and all other episodes are uncut and feature all the original music.

[Mish-Dawg]

Okay, I finally got the first Japanese disc. Each episode is indeed 24-25 minutes long. I haven't yet checked "For Your Eyes Only" yet but I assume it's cut. Each episode also contains a Portuguese dub as well as Spanish and Portuguese subtitles, in addition to English/Japanese, and are coded for regions 2-4. So these might also get sold in places like Central/South America someday (but then again, they have Japanese credits so maybe not).

The discs are also NTSC, I assume the German ones are NTSC to PAL transfers.