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KYARY

                                            March 18, 2014
  Kyary Pamyu Pamyu hardly needs
  any introduction from me, at
  this point.

  Does she?

  Strangely enough, the people I talk to                    HARAJUKU_FACE
  often remain strangely ignorant of the
  Kyary phenomena, despite the fact that      You, uh, have heard of
  she's the first real Harajuku fashion/      Harajuku fashion, right?
  Kawaii idol breakthrough to become a        You know, like "Fruits"?
  world wide musical sensation.
                                                   (Whenever I get started
                                                   on this stuff it seems
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's music has a                    like there's *one more*
bouncy, catchy repetive quality                    thing I need to explain.)
to it like music boxes or carousels,
though at an even faster pace...                             J_MAZE
but her singing and performance style
is almost as deadpan as a ballerina,
which is something very unusual in
the kawaii/idol field, where cheerful
engaging smiles are almost required.

Fashion is where she began-- a teenage              Kyary at 17:
street-star hanging out on the Harajuku scene,
picked up as a cover model by the magazine          http://www.japanesestreets.com/photoblog/1226/harajuku-tokyo-kyary-pamyu-pamyu
Kera-- and her sense of fashion is perhaps the
most complex thing about her...  the bright,
clashing colors and childish accessories that
are jammed together and somehow made to work,
that all might be regarded as normal for
Harajuku, the addition of darker elements that
don't seem dark for some reason, that's what
takes one into the Kyary zone: the skull
patterns that you don't notice at first, the         WSJ_KYARY
nearly ubiquitous eyeball-motif (her special,
adopted symbol)...

Her stage performance in her 2014 tour --
Dangerbaby and I saw her at the Regency
Ballroom in SF this year:

   Kyary's own movements while singing--
   I get the sense that she's actually
   singing, but couldn't tell you why--
   are relatively minimal (perhaps,
   "cool"),

   The visual effect is filled-in by a
   troupe of around 4 dancers, male dancers,
   I believe, though they're small and slim
   and dressed up in masks and children's
   pajama's with a hint of breasts that
   gives them a tremendously androgynous
   appearence.  Their dance moves are one of
   the most creative things about her show,
   they go leaping about energetically like
   deranged monkeys with just a hint of
   creepy menance underlying it all.

   In the rear corners of the stage: two
   piles of colorful, grossly oversized toys
   dominated by an inflated teddy bear on
   one side and a warped jack-in-the-box on
   the other.

       This is a good tie-in with her
       famous video, the thing that
       put her over in 2011:

       http://www.mtviggy.com/interviews/cray-pop-the-kawaii-genius-of-kyary-pamyu-pamyu/


This video was actually designed by Sebastian,
of the "6% Doki Doki" fashion line. 

    While trying to describe this phenomena to
    a friend, he suggested that Sebastian is      HARAJUKU_FACE
    a new Malcolm Mclauren figure, and that
    is perhaps not far off.

    Dangerbaby and I happened to see the
    "6% Doki Doki" stage show at the J-Pop       (We were not quite cool
    festival of a few years a go--               enough to know about Kyary
    a uniform wall of brightly clashing          Pamyu Pamyu before she
    colors, a fine example of the Harajuku       broke, but we were-- just
    style: take the "poet's choice" six          barely-- cool enough to
    times over, push through Too Much            know about Sebastian...
    until it all starts to make sense            It was an odd suprise to
    again...                                     realize that he was behind
                                                 her big video.)


                                             Our connection in all of this
                                             runs through "New People" and
                                             Viz Media, and the J-Pop Summit event...

                                             NEW_PEOPLE


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