Merli

Merli (メルリ / Meruri) is the winning name for the contest to find the name of the elder sister for Aoki Lapis.

History
Aoki Lapis' sister was first announced in April 2012 as "i-style 2nd Project", a competition was held to find the name of the Vocaloid.

At the end of June 2012, an i-style video event featured a silhouette of her (just a profile shot) in a live stream and confirmed details of her were due soon.

At the end of July 2012, i-style released illustrations of her on their official website, and on early August 2012, i-style project started an open recruitment for a voice provider for Merli; the deadline of the recruitment was set on September 10, 2012. Later this was extended to the 30th of November 2012.

Currently, the auditions are over and the process of choosing has begun.

Concept
Merli's design is loosely based on the "magic-girl" anime genre and her bio states that she is a fairy and has some background information, hence why she is listed with such a small size. Her race's concept as fairies is that they are a special race who can convert “songs” into “power”. They can only be seen by a subset of the human population. She and Lapis are opposite.If Lapis can be considered as "light", her sister is therefore "dark" due to her more devil-like attributes. While Lapis' power of song gives life, Merli's draws energy from living things.

Her official profile says, "She's strong-minded and tsundere; she's a charming mysterious girl, who is innocent and changing the facial expression all the time. She's basically naive, but so innocent that she usually pretends to know everything ad hoc."

Etymology
She is named after Merlinite (メルリナイト / Merurinaito) a type of stone known for its dual light and dark appearance.

Marketing
Much like Lapis, a lot of the marketing around Merli has been centered directly on the fans.

Wall scroll
A wall scroll of Merli and Aoki Lapis has been produced.

Vocaloid 3
Unreleased


 * -|Merli =

Trivia

 * Merli and Lapis are the first two Vocaloids confirmed to be siblings.