SONiKA

SONiKA is an English VOCALOID developed and distributed by Zero-G Limited, and was released in July 2009 for the VOCALOID2 engine. SONiKA is advertised as a "virtual vocalist modeled on the voice of a young girl pop singer"; her voice provider has never been revealed.

Concept
She is the first English speaking VOCALOID to use a character design and profile as part of the product. SONiKA was released with profile/biographical information on the back cover of the software package, similar to the other VOCALOID2 products. Her personality also shows in her "tweets".

Etymology
The name "Sonika" is Hindi, a girl's name based on the Hindi word for "Golden beauty".

Appearance
According to her twitter messages, SONiKA's hair color is able to change color (e.g. from green to red), she also has freckles that show in the summer heat.

The tattoo on her left side is her name in katakana as " ソニカ ".

Relations
SONiKA is the first VOCALOID to coin the concept of "the Vocaloid family". This was previously a fan concept that accepts all VOCALOIDs as a form of undefined "family". SONiKA, however, became more definite on how she was related to certain VOCALOIDs.


 * SONiKA regards LEON, LOLA and MIRIAM as her older siblings
 * Prima as her "auntie"
 * Tonio as her "uncle"
 * She referred to BIG AL as "her best friend" when asked about which VOCALOID she talked to the most.
 * All other VOCALOIDs are referred to as her cousins.

In regards to VOCALOID3 she was glad to be getting more brothers and sisters, and stated she was looking forward to meeting her new friends and singing along side them.

Examples of Usage

 * -|SONiKA =

Marketing
Prior to SONiKA, Zero-G did not do much to market their VOCALOIDs, since they sold based on reputation of their products to a strictly professional market and most marketing was done via traditional means (such as software reviews). Unlike past VOCALOIDs, SONiKA was a more fandom driven VOCALOID. Rather than target professionals, Zero-G focused on selling SONiKA to the Vocaloid fans. This produced in both positive and negative results, with the most important advantage being that Zero-G was able to create links with the Vocaloid English fandom that never existed previously. The downside was that any disappointments around SONiKA were more felt then with previous VOCALOIDs they had made since they were talking to the fans of VOCALOID software directly.

Comic
She also had a comic uploaded onto her website.

SONiKA on Twitter
Following her release Zero-G took a unique stance with her post-release development. They have created and maintained a Twitter page for SONiKA, something unheard of for any past VOCALOID. Tweets have included pictures of herself with a different hair color, announcing her favorite food is sashimi tuna, and announcing upcoming interviews in media articles. She has even made direct reference to fans discussing what her character item should be.

She also reports things like Tonio's late arrival and may even make a reaction to the release of other VOCALOIDs like Big Al. In January 2011, her Twitter account reached 1,000 followers. The Twitter account is maintained by "Sonika" and not by a bot.

Competitions
From November 2, 2009 to November 30, 2009. Zero-G announced a competition to give SONiKA a new look. The winner would receive a copy of the "SONiKA VOCALOID2 Software".

Nearing the end of November an image was uploaded on Crypton Catalog that represented SONiKA's new appearance. It was drawn by artist Mario Wibisono (aka raynkazuya) at the request of Zero-G. And with the image being found during the New Look Competition and uploaded to Zero-G's site a few days later, this greatly confused fans and submitters who thought that it was the winning entry.

This was quickly corrected by Zero-G stating that the competition rules never included the winning image being used for boxart.

She also had a song competition in 2010, the winner would received whatever Zero-G VOCALOID2 voicebank they desired. The winner was Daniel Castro with the song “U Know It (My Name Is SONiKA)”.

Trivia

 * The winner of SONiKA's New Look Competition was entry number 30.


 * The artist of SONiKA's 2nd boxart design has a DeviantART account, as does the artist for the comics.


 * Although she was not the first English VOCALOID to use an avatar on her boxart, she was the first to mimic the Japanese style of avatars.


 * An old trick within the Western Vocaloid fandom is to have Luka and SONiKA sing together when using English. If correctly done both voices will blend together. The advantage of this is both VOCALOIDs effectively hide each others flaws.

Notable for...

 * First English VOCALOID to have a "true" avatar
 * First VOCALOID to have a boxart redesign
 * First English VOCALOID to get significant attention
 * First VOCALOID to be released in Taiwan
 * First VOCALOID to own a Twitter
 * First VOCALOID to use the concept of a "Vocaloid family"
 * First VOCALOID to coin the fan-term "Engloid"
 * First VOCALOID to be released in greater China