that he wants to go to the cathedral of Antwerp, to see Rubens' The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross — but the exhibition in the cathedral is only for paying customers, and he has no money left. On the night of Christmas Eve, Nello and Patrasche find that the door to the church has been left unlocked. They go inside, and the next morning are found dead of hypothermia in front of the triptych. Popularity The novel shares a reasonable notability in both the United Kingdom and the United States and is extremely popular in Ukraine, Russia, Japan, Korea and the Philippines to the point where it is seen as a children's classic. It inspired film and anime adaptations, including the 1975 animated TV series Dog of Flanders which reached an audience of 30 million viewers on its first broadcast. In Belgium, the story is more obscure. Only in 1987 did it receive a Dutch translation; this happened after the tale was adapted into a story of the popular comic book series Suske en Wiske. Since then, monuments were raised to commemorate Nello and Patrasche to please tourists. In 2007, Didier Volckaert and An van Dienderen directed a documentary about the international popularity of the story: "Patrasche, A Dog of Flanders - Made in Japan". It researches all available film adaptations of the story and interviews several British, American and Japanese people about what attracts them to this novel. Film, TV and theatrical adaptations The novel has been adapted for cinema and television in live-action and animation. Many of the film versions, excluding the 1997 Japanese movie and Snow Prince (2009), replace the original ending with a more optimistic one. A Dog of Flanders (1914), a short film directed by Howell Hansel A Boy of Flanders (1924), directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring Jackie Coogan as Nello A Dog of Flanders (1935), directed by Edward Sloman A Dog of Flanders (1960), directed by James B. Clark and starring David Ladd as Nello. Dog of Flanders (1975), a Japanese animation TV series produced by Nippon Animation My Patrasche (1992), a Japanese animation TV series produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha The Dog of Flanders (Japan, 1997), a remake of the 1975 TV series directed by Yoshio Kuroda. In this version, Aloise reflects on the life of Nello while working as a nun and the landlord is named