Kyary gets cuter

Two and a half years after she first came onto the scene, there aren’t many people left who don’t know Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
In high school, her friends called her “Kyary”. “Pamyu Pamyu” was her own addition: she liked the sound of it and thought it was cute.
“I thought it would be boring to have an ordinary name. I was just joking around when I made it up, but look what’s happened with it,” says the pop star with a big grin.
Today, she’s touring the world and people flocking to her concerts.
“Last year I travelled around to so many countries on my first world tour. It really touched me that there were eager fans waiting to see me everywhere I went. That so many people wanted to see me in faraway places across the ocean makes me feel really lucky and really happy,” says the singer, who won over Thai fans when she appeared at Bec-Tero “Sonic Bang” festival last August.
She began working as a model for fashion magazines when she was in high school. After graduating, she made her professional debut in earnest. But she had her share of worries.
“All around me, my friends were going to university or starting new jobs, and I was the only one who had not resolved anything. It made me feel anxious,” she confides.
Kyary’s debut mini album released in 2011 raised eyebrows and won praise as “kawaii” (cute) in Japan and around the world.
Despite the anxiety, she said, “I think I was really lucky when I made my big debut after graduation,” she says.
One part of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s persona that always attracts curiosity is her clothes. Does she have a secret?
“I don’t have any special obsession or fixed rules when it comes to fashion,” she says “I put on whatever I like that particular day, whatever feels cute. To be honest, maybe I’ve felt for a long time that I don’t want to wear the same clothes as everybody else.”
But her look hasn’t always been so welcome.
“There were times when my appearance surprised people, and they wouldn’t accept me because I looked too extraordinary,” she says. “But I think I am where I am today because I’ve stuck to what matters to me. It’s important to stay true to yourself if you can do it without making trouble for the people around you.”
Kyary seems to be steering a clear course through to her dreams. But she still makes the occasional blunder. She said she has bitten into what looked like an apple but turned out to be a potato.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s second world tour kicked off in February in Seattle. The KPP Nanda Collection World Tour 2014 takes its name from her second album “Nanda Collection,” which was released last year.
She toured San Francisco and Los Angeles before a brief return to Japan. She flew back to North America for concerts in Chicago, Toronto and New York last week.
And there’s good news for her Thai fans as Kyary will also be coming back to Thailand as part of the Asian leg of her tour. She’s scheduled to appear in Bangkok on June 28.