Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko doesn’t waste time jumping right into telling the tale of a young woman named Nikuko, who travels the lands in search of love, big dreams, and reaching a future that even she is uncertain of. Nikuko’s journey establishes itself as quite realistic as we see this woman make some rather careless choices due to her big heart but instead of quitting and lying down and letting her choices ruin her, she gets back up and…makes most of the same mistakes again. Nikuko will easily be a character many can relate to and that is why we were enthralled by her charm right away.

The story shifts rather quickly after we learn the back story of Nikuko as Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko focuses a bit more on Kikuko but only as a means of seeing two different perspectives of our main character, Nikuko, all while seeing the growth of Kikuko. Female viewers will no doubt relate strongly to Kikuko as she endures friendship issues and embarrassment from her mom but we’re sure guys too, will relate to the latter concept. We won’t spoil some of the MAJOR twists that Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko has—though they will be obvious to most by the halfway point—and that’s why this journey is best-taken spoiler free.

Relatability is probably the best way to define Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko and we can say it a thousand times but really, that’s what makes this movie shine. Watching the trials and tribulations of Kikuko are almost eerily similar to what some of us here at Honey’s Anime have gone through in life and likewise, we see Nikuko’s past being relatable to us as well. By the end of this hour and a half film, we bet some folks will be nodding their heads as they say things like “yeah that was me in school” and/or “I understand a bad relationship”. Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko really is a slice-of-life movie that knows how to express what life can be like for a person.

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko is a rather curious anime movie. At times, the film can look gorgeous with some beautiful scenery shots and some rather detailed characters. Then it can look almost cartoonish with extreme animation choices—especially from Nikuko and one of the male characters, Ninomiya—that border on the surreal. We actually kind of love this design choice as it keeps the audience from forgetting this is an anime despite the tale being told. However, there is one glaring issue with Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko and while we understand why it was done this way…it certainly isn’t going to be loved by all. Yes, if it isn’t obvious we’re talking about the main girl herself, Nikuko.

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko is an anime that is obvious and as in most anime, the main characters can look strange and quite unrealistic. That is the charm of animation, making MCs that look cool or have a uniqueness to them you can’t find in the real realm. Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko’s main lead Nikuko…probably isn’t one of the best female leads we’ve seen due to how she’s not only animated quite strangely—literally sometimes turning into a blob of meat a few times to convey her large nature—but kind of goes against the attempt at making a fully relatable protagonist. Nikuko’s daughter Kikuko is the polar opposite as she looks like a typical young woman but we have to wonder if animating Nikuko the way the studio did was the best decision. As we said earlier, many will relate to Nikuko and probably Kikuko but many will have to wonder if Nikuko was made a bit too oddly.