Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko hits hard. It’s a beautiful look at untraditional family units, the choices we make, and the love that binds us to those around us. It’s about learning how to understand instead of judge and how to let people in.

| Apr 15, 2023

It's a remarkably complex film that takes on some enormous ideas.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 17, 2022

This memorably animated adaptation is both a big-hearted and disappointingly fat-shaming story of a mother and daughter who share little in common except their love -- and love of food.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 10, 2022

[An] intimately scaled coming-of-age story that acutely understands the embarrassment that teenagers have towards their parents once puberty hits.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 9, 2022

It tells a moderately entertaining story about an eccentric single mother and her teenage daughter, who is the story's narrator. This comedy/drama anime film isn't great though. It has some problematic mocking of the title character's large body.

| Jun 25, 2022

When was the last time you’ve seen a kids’ film that dealt with issues like parental abandonment or the fears and tribulations of adolescence?

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 17, 2022

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko has a unique charm.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 8, 2022

Very charming, very warm, and a very welcome change for Ayumu Watanabe.

| Jun 7, 2022

Mildly entertaining, but tonally uneven and meandering with a maudlin third act.

| Jun 4, 2022

Has enough of the stylistic edge of the studio's great triumphs of old that it feels a bit more adventuresome than its admittedly boilerplate writing would suggest.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 4, 2022

Misshapen parts and all, Fortune Favors fulfills its purpose as a joyfully eccentric tribute to personal authenticity.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 3, 2022

A glowingly beautiful film that on first viewing seems to have a surprisingly ugly heart.

| Jun 3, 2022

A gleaming and delightful anime with a large appetite for tenderness and laughter...

| Jun 3, 2022

There’s nothing new or surprising about what Kikuko goes through, but her process of self-discovery still feels low-key thrilling for all of its graceful, lived-in details.

| Jun 2, 2022

[T]he movie ultimately falls into some distracting melodrama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 2, 2022

A puerile, mean-spirited tendency... altogether spoils the otherwise exquisite imagery.

| Jun 2, 2022

It's a beautiful film and a lovely story about a young woman coming to grips with what it means to be an adult.

| May 31, 2022

It’s inventive, fun and entertaining

| May 31, 2022

More than anything, "Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko" is a joyous celebration of acceptance, an acknowledgment that what we think of ourselves matters more than the hardships which come from poor choices or simple bad luck.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 30, 2022

Packed to the brim with delicious food, engaging animation, and a powerful relationship thats fully nourished, its a delightful drama that never ceases to tug on the heartstrings.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 12, 2022