I’ve been interested in Marie Kondo’s book on tidying up ever since 4 patrons requested the book in 2 days a while back. I was curious but never got around to it… That is until Marie Kondo teamed up with illustrator Yuko Uramoto to create a manga version of her insanely popular #1 Amazon Bestseller in Homecleaning. I immediately requested it from the library to borrow.
Konmari, as Marie Kondo calls herself, is a tidy specialist who comes to the aid of Chiaki, a young 29-year-old salary woman who works in the beverage industry. Chiaki has an unkempt apartment; it is revealed she keeps hobby items that past boyfriends have associated with. That, plus her demanding job (as seen from her arriving home at night, mentioning she only has the weekend the tidy up, and stays out working late) causes her to keep to a cluttered routine. Konmari helps, not by going on her hands and knees scrubbing, but by asking Chiaki a series of questions such as “What kind of lifestyle do you want?” or “What kind of life do you want to live here?”
The questions help determine what items should be kept and what items should be discarded. From there Chiaki finds herself with a different routine in life: She wakes up earlier to cook her own breakfast rather than going to a convenience store and her work desk is clean and neat.
Quite frankly, it is amazing how Konmari put in perspective that cleaning isn’t just cleaning but analyzing your living space and lifestyle to determine what you want out of a tidy area. As someone whose purse is filled with paper receipts, this leisure read became instructive and got me planning on the kind of lifestyle I want.
The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story can be found on Amazon or libraries near you. A wonderful addition to any manga collection, especially on the topic of cleaning and tidying up.
Island Librarian 