[tenshi no hane]

You're welcome, everyone

And here's 2003 and 2004 ♥

Spoiler:

2003年

When I entered my 3rd year as an artist I still didn’t have a single hit song. But that also created an opportunity for me when the producer of Final Fantasy X-2 said: “I want to use a person who isn’t famous yet, but who’s an artist of ‘the future’.” I got selected to sing the theme song for such a popular game. There’s no way this won’t attract attention!! That’s why:

---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---

I vowed that to myself. The song that would decide my fate was Real Emotion.

Real Emotion placed 3rd on the Oricon charts thanks to Final Fantasy. It was my first hit song. At that time I felt: “It’s finally come!!” (laughs). “Once people will listen to my songs, I will certainly be able to keep their interest”, I had held on to that believe as I had kept running. That’s why, at the time, I held the fleeting hope that “thanks to this hit song, things will definitely change!!”

But reality differed greatly from my dreams again… Although my 2nd album ‘grow into one’ which I released directly after Real Emotion ranked 8th on the Oricon charts, the singles I released afterwards all ranked outside of the top 10. Because my hopes had been so high, the fall was really hard too.

“I can’t create a hit song on my own.”

I started thinking like that and felt depressed on a lot of days. But slowly I started to think like this:

“Someday I’ll become an artist of which people say, ‘Koda Kumi didn’t sell a lot thanks to the tie-in, but the product sold a lot thanks to Koda Kumi’!!”

Though I might not have ranked 3rd because of my own power, that 3rd place still filled me with some confidence. I decided “alright, I’ll give it my all again!!” I vowed to myself to continue to run towards my dream.


“If this song doesn’t sell well, then I’ll give up”

Spoiler:

2004年

The moment I first ran into Crazy 4 U, I felt:
“This is the song that will symbolize Koda Kumi!!”

Before now I had slowly started voicing my opinion and I had started selecting songs personally, but Crazy 4 U was the first song where I directly discussed things like “I want to wear this” “I want to dance like this” “I want to shoot the PV like this” with my staff and self-produced everything.

A sexy and cool woman.
A dazzling dance performance.
Trying out things that other artists haven’t done before.
A type of entertainment that only I can provide…

The artist that Koda Kumi should represent finally became clear.

Crazy 4 U is the song that created Koda Kumi!! When I look back at the years until 2003, I was filled with enthusiasm, but I didn’t have a clear goal. That’s why it was so hard. Maybe I didn’t get any results because the me who was singing on stage was lost?

The fog in front of my eyes cleared and the path I should walk on became visible. Singing became more fun thanks to that. Every day I felt “I’m really doing what I want to do” and in response to that feeling, my single LOVE & HONEY ranked 4th on the Oricon charts. More fans came to see my events and the amount of fan letters increased too. It started slowly but it felt like I was finally being recognized.

But I was still a “newborn” at the time and it was a period of trial and error. Although I had attracted attention with Cutie Honey, I was swamped with criticism for the clothes I wore at Music Station and when my sales dropped again just like after Real Emotion, I was crushed by the thought “again?”… Not everything was great and there were a lot of incidents that upset me. I often felt anxious and thought things like, “Is the place I am aiming for right?” “If so, am I doing something wrong?”.

Even so,
I wanted to believe in my own style
That I had taken so long to find,
No matter what other people might say.
I didn’t want to give it up.
I didn’t want to be diverted.

I usually got scared easily, but this time I pushed through my own ideas for the first time.

I could take a big new step forward in 2004. I love the person I became ♥


After 4 years “Koda Kumi” was finally born!!