Sparking Joy with Marie Kondo is a newly released reality TV show on Netflix. This is Kondo’s second Netflix Special since she shot to fame for devising her “Marie Kondo method” for keeping things tidy and organized around the house.
Her first show, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo was a spectacular hit, and her name began to be largely associated with the phrase “sparking joy”. Drawing from this, her second show focuses on organizational tips and tricks while filming some of her real-life clientele.
The show features 3 episodes in total with a run time of approximately 40 minutes per episode and so you could easily finish the show in a span of 2 to 3 hours. The show mainly deals with 3 different clients Marie helps but also focuses on her personal life here and there throughout the show.
Netflix describes it as:
The home was just the beginning. Global organization icon Marie Kondo is back, in Sparking Joy with Marie Kondo. The three-episode series follows Marie as she shares her life-changing method with three deserving businesses, their owners and employees.
Via the Netflix Official site
Keeping things tidy is difficult, and it is definitely something most of us struggle with. Marie Kondo’s technique is simple: If it sparks joy, you keep it. If it doesn’t, there is no point holding on to it. Based on this principle, Marie helped clients declutter their homes and consequently, their lives. Now, with her new Netflix special, she moves on to workspaces and businesses that struggle with clutter and organization.
With her three-part show, Marie helps a family-run plant nursery organize their place of work, and reconnect with each other. She works with an overworked young mom to declutter her home and her small business, and then with a single mom at a local church.
Also read: Netflix’s Untold Crime and Penalties: Review: The Untold Saga Continues
The show almost has a meditative touch to it. Marie Kondo’s voice, narrating the episodes in Japanese, the aesthetic colour palette, and a soothing background score almost make it feel therapeutic to watch. Not to mention the fact that watching people transform their cluttered and messy living quarters into a tidy space conducive to their work is a form of meditation in itself.
That said, the show feels more like YouTube vlogs, because they do, essentially, have no plot whatsoever. The first episode tries to appeal to an emotional chord within the viewers, but there’s only so much sympathy you can get when there really hasn’t been much of a character arch.
The transformation i.e., the before and after shots is what the viewer constantly waits for, and these feel quite rewarding when the final result is revealed towards the end of the episode. Sparking Joy with Marie Kondo is not something you’d really like to binge-watch though. You’d find yourself bored and zoned out by the third episode. It’s best if you space out your episodes and watch them when you need something light and easy to watch.
Final Verdict: Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo
Netflix seems to finally be getting its reality tv genre right, with shows like Motel Makeover and Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo. Although the shows are quite different in their approach, Marie Kondo’s, in particular, is just so relaxing to watch. It isn’t something particularly profound, and it certainly feels more like a vlog than it should, but it will still calm you quite a bit. And maybe even inspire you to tidy up yourself. That’s a win-win right?
Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo is now streaming on Netflix.
Also Read: Netflix’s Motel Makeover (2021) Review: Fun, Creative and Way Too Pink