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When watching the _Hana Yori Dango_ ( _Boys Over Flowers_ ) anime, it seemed
like there was a distinctly different art style for the final episode (#51).
Not remarkably different, but noticeable enough that it made me wonder if
something had changed for the last episode... different direction, artists,
etc.

Was anything ever said about the production of the series that indicated that
something happened near the end that could have caused some kind of shakeup?


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boys-over-flowers
Did something change for the final episode of Hana Yori Dango?


I can't answer your question with certainty. No, there doesn't seem to be
anything off about writing, production, or art direction in the last episode:

  * The last 3 episodes were all written by the same person, 影山由美 (Yumi Kageyama). 影山由美 was in charge of series organization/composition and wrote more episodes than anyone else.
  * The producer, 山吉康夫, also produced episodes 3, 9, 15, 20, 26, 32, 37, 42, 46, and of course 51.
  * Art direction was performed by 馬越嘉彦 (Yoshihiko Umakoshi), who was actually in charge of character design for the whole show. He also provided art direction for episodes 1, 16, 25, 32, 43, and of course 51.

This is all from the Wikipedia page on the anime, which lists all the details
by episode: [花より男子 アニメ
TVシリーズ](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E3%82%88%E3%82%8A%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%90#.E3.82.A2.E3.83.8B.E3.83.A1)

**Personal speculation:**

I've seen the whole anime, have read the manga all the way through a couple of
times, and watched two of the live actions (Japanese and Korean), I was really
into _Hana Yori Dango_ back in the day. I felt like the end of the anime was
unexpected/unforeseen and that they just rushed an ending together. The show
did a pretty good job of following the manga ... right until those last few
episodes/last episode. My guess is they were told,

> were cutting the show, end it.

so they did and things didn't turn out quite the same as usual.

According to [HMV
Online](http://www.hmv.co.jp/artist_%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8B%E3%83%A1_000000000013179/item_%E8%8A%B1%E3%82%88%E3%82%8A%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%90-%EF%BD%B1%EF%BE%86%EF%BE%92_1412110),
the average rating for the TV show was 9.9%, max was 12.1%. I don't know much
about TV ratings, but the Japanese TV Drama was never lower than 17% in season
1 and 19% in season 2 ([same Wikipedia
page](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E3%82%88%E3%82%8A%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%90#.E3.82.A2.E3.83.8B.E3.83.A1)).
To me, this looks like a cut due to ratings.


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answer