Merli 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 in profile in a live stream and confirmed details of her were due soon. At the end of July 2012, i-style Project 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 November 30, 2012. On November 30, 2012, the auditions were over and the process of choosing had begun. In March 2013, it was announced that 6 vocalists had been chosen from the auditions. The third and final audition to choose the vocalist for Merli occurred on the March 14, 2013, in relation to Aoki Lapis' anniversary at Shibuya O-nest. Merli was released on December 24, 2013. Her official boxart was shown on December 17, 2013, and it comes with a silhouette jacket by default. The jacket can be flipped to display a colour avatar version of Merli instead if the owner prefers it over the default art.
Additional Software Merli was released for the
iVocaloid iOS app and later
Mobile Vocaloid Editor. ==Characteristics==