Born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Tamura gained fame as an advocate for the Lolita fashion movement, wearing Lolita-style clothing in public, as well as for her music releases, often in music videos and on the covers of her CD releases. Affectionately called Yukarin by her fans, several of her releases have been used as opening and ending themes for anime series, while some have reached the Oricon top 100 singles and album charts. In 2001, Tamura formed a unit called Yamato Nadeshiko alongside Yui Horie. Two singles were released, Mō Hitori no Watashi and Merry Merrily – the latter of which was an insert song in the Love Hina Christmas Special.

On January 1, 2007, Tamura’s talent management agency changed from Arts Vision to I’m Enterprise, a subsidiary of Arts Vision and on April 1, 2007, Tamura’s record company officially changed from Konami to King Records, however, there was no material effect to Tamura because the actual record production of Konami is carried out by King Records. She has also featured as a narrator of Japanese anime satellite television network Animax.

In February 2016, Tamura’s agency announced that a concert which had been announced during a Niconico livestream in 2015 would be cancelled. Her management also announced that her fanclub would change ownership and her radio programs would end. Her staff’s Twitter account would be closed and her website would undergo maintenance. On February 13, 2016, her management announced that her contract with King Records would end on March 20, 2016. She changed her agency once more from I’m Enterprise to Amuleto.