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lolita media library: Yukari Tamura (田村ゆかり)

General info

Yukari Tamura (田村ゆかり) is a voice actress and idol singer. She debuted in 1997 and is still active.
Official website: http://www.tamurayukari.com/

How she’s related to lolita

She has a personal interest in lolita fashion and wore it extensively at the point her career really began to take off in the early-mid 2000s, which helped to spread awareness of the fashion, especially its lighter, sweeter side. This was also around the time I feel like sweet lolita grew up and became its own substyle, without gothic aspects.

The CD of hers I have a physical copy of (her single Summer Melody, released in 2001) features photos of her in this floral gobelin dress from Maxicimam. Subsequent albums have some really cute old school outfits. :)


Summer Melody CD single booklet photos

Comments

She was influential to me personally because at the time I was really into her music (early-mid 2000s) she was one of the only non visual-kei musicians I saw wearing lolita, especially in light colors, as opposed to many other musical artists at the time who emphasized the gothic part of gothic and lolita. She really made me want to try it because she made it look fun rather than moody. I remember gathering inspiration from her album art for hair accessories.

Her music is mostly sweet and bouncy and uplifting to match her fashion style, which I was drawn to because it aligned better with my general personality and musical tastes. Her attempt at a metal song (Princess Metal Bunny ~Holy Mass in the Dark Yukari Kingdom~) was cringey and hilarious. It’s about the audience falling under a spell to turn them into cats and bend them to her will. The concept works with her voice but she definitely does not have a voice for metal. Though admittedly now I’ve half a mind to put together a black metal rabbit coordinate. :) It looks like she’s wearing an Atelier Pierrot dress or possibly Atelier Boz in the jacket photos, but I’d want to play up the rabbit part a bit more.

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(image credit: mosa.jp)

The titles given to her albums, tours, and songs are usually quite fanciful and could work well as sweet lolita print names.

Some particularly good examples in English and French: Sugar Time Trip, Lovely Magic, Dreamy Maple Crown, Starry Candy Stripe, Peachy Cherry Pie, Princess à la mode, Princess Rose, Beautiful Amulet, Prince On A Star ~Princess Whispers~, Powder Rainbow, Spiritual Garden, Fancy Baby Doll, Petite lumière (Little Light), Les larmes de la lune (Moon Tears).

Some similarly sweet Japanese ones: 花降り月夜と恋曜日 (Flowers Falling on Love Days and Moonlit Nights), 蒼空に揺れる蜜月の小舟 (Little Honeymoon Boat Rocking in the Sky), 恋するラズベリー (Raspberry in Love), 夢見月のアリス (Dreaming Moon Alice), 恋歌姫 (Love Song Princess), A Day Of Little Girl ~姫とウサギとおしゃべりこねこ~ (~Princess, Rabbit, and Chatty Kitten~), AMBER〜人魚の涙〜 (AMBER ~Mermaid Tears~), 最果ての森 (Forest at the End of the World), 童話迷宮 (Fairy Tale Labyrinth).

Suggested songs

I listen to Yukarin a lot less these days as my tastes have matured and her songs have gone the balls-to-the-wall hyper direction in recent years, but here are some of my old favorites, many of which I still wouldn’t kick off my playlist. The links go to pages with a short clip of the song (just hit the Play button), in case you’re curious to hear them. I tend to like the slower ones :)

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