[Road to Miku Day] Who is Gumi?

Hello my nettaversers! There is a very special day coming up in El Paso Texas being hailed as Miku Day El Paso 2013 aka MD39. The event will be held on March 9th 2013 at the UTEP Hilton Garden Inn from 12-9pm.  The event is very small with a few Miku related events. It is only $5 to attend. For more info, be sure to visit the event page.

While there will not be many events centered around Gumi during El Paso MD39, I decided to start this Road to Miku Day series with her because it seems she is the lesser known vocaloid even though there is an English version being worked on which will be the first official English speaking vocaloid available! Due solely to that I am honestly surprised she isn't that well known.

According to the vocaloid wiki "Gumi is an official mascot character of Megpoid  which is a singing synthesizer application software powered by Yamaha's Vocaloid2 and was published by INTERNET Co.,Ltd." This means while she is not part of the original series of vocaloid characters like Miku is, she is still a vocaloid. Megapoid was first released June 25, 2009 with an extended version released in 2010 and version 3 in 2011.

A version of Gumi's Vocaloid2 voice bank is being worked on for a Vocaloid3 revamp which had a planned release in 2012 but has not been seen. On the other hand her English version was released on February 28th 2013- being dubbed the "English Meapoid". This version of Gumi is the first English speaking Vocaloid; containes 5x the amount a Japanese vocaloid bank usually has and is the first in a series of vocaloid released for the Trans-Pacific campaign. The first sample of Gumi's English voice bank can be found here.

The Vocaloid2 version ceased sale on March 15th 2012.