Real Emotion / 1000 no Kotoba

Background and release

The track "1000 no Kotoba" was arranged by Takahito Eguchi and Noriko Matsueda, the duo responsible for much of Final Fantasy X-2's music. It came out under Rhythm Zone on March 5, 2003, with the catalog number RZCD-45080. A limited edition of Koda Kumi's album Grow into One included an orchestra version as a bonus track, which played during the game's credits. The song also featured on the Final Fantasy X-2 Original Soundtrack. In 2007, Koda Kumi put out another orchestra version on her third compilation album, Best ~Bounce & Lovers~.

Koda Kumi once said about the single: "If this song doesn't sell, it means that I don't have what it takes to be an artist. If that happens, then I'll give up with good grace." After several of her earlier singles failed to chart well, she decided this release would determine her future as an artist. When it performed strongly on the charts, she saw it as the start of her career, but later felt discouraged when subsequent singles didn't do as well. She explained: "Once people will listen to my songs, I will certainly be able to keep their interest. Because my hopes had been so high, the fall was really too hard."

The single "Real Emotion" / "1000 no Kotoba" became her first to break into the top ten on the weekly Oricon Singles Charts, peaking at number three and staying on the chart for twenty-eight weeks. It sold over 283,000 copies. She would not have another single surpass those physical sales until her 2006 release "4 Hot Wave". Additionally, a Final Fantasy X-2 single called "Kuon: Memories of Waves and Light" was released under Avex in November 2003, featuring three tracks: "Kuon: Memories of Waves and Light", "Besaid", and "Yuna's Ballad".

Music video

The music video for "Real Emotion" was released on the DVD 7 Spirits and accompanied Kumi's album Grow into One. It marked the first time an artist helped create a dance for a video game; Kumi's choreography was digitized into the game for its opening sequence. The video showed the process behind the in-game footage, with Kumi standing on a motion-capture platform that tracked her movements and mapped them onto the performing character. The song served as the opening theme for Final Fantasy X-2. In the opening cutscene, Yuna performs it at the blitzball stadium in Luca, though it is later revealed that Leblanc, a rival sphere hunter, is impersonating Yuna after stealing her Songstress dressphere. Yuna's performance uses both Kumi's voice and her digitized dance moves. Although "1000 no Kotoba (1000 Words)" was treated as an A-side, it had no official music video; instead, its video appeared within the game. That video showed Yuna singing in the Thunder Plains. The song is a love ballad written by the character Lenne, whose Songstress dressphere Yuna uses, addressed to her lover Shuyin. Both Lenne and Shuyin died a thousand years earlier in Zanarkand. The scene reveals their backstory: they were killed by Bevelle's guards in front of the weapon Vegnagun. Lenne's song was meant to express the thousand words over a thousand years she never got to say to Shuyin. Kumi performs the Japanese versions of both songs, while Jade Villalon of Sweetbox performs the English versions used in North American and international releases. Villalon's full versions appeared on Sweetbox's album Adagio, which was released in Japan.