Melody Prower

Melody Prower (メロディープラウアー. Merodīpurauā) She is an anthropomorphic mongoose/fox hybrid born with the ability to run faster than the speed of sound and possesses lightning fast reflexes to match.

Melody loves with her family on Westside Island living out her days until her and her brother met Manik and Dr. Eggman. She dreams of being a pop singer like her mom and, as stated in Manik Jam, wants to open and operate her own casino. She's best known for her super speed, her singing voice, and the ability to impersonate other people's voice (in the some media).

She is Manik's girlfriend and is his main drive to continue fighting for truth and justice. When she's not fighting Eggman or hanging out with Manik, she's write and play music as her pass time. She also posses a time stone and is one of the few people that is able to use their power for more than just creating good futures for their home planet.

Concept and Creation
Manik was created by Keji Yamaoto. Melody was originality created for Manik the Hedgehog 2 as a bonus character if the player input Yamaoto's birthdate into Manik 2's password screen, but the idea was ultimately drop as Sega thought she played too simpler to Manik. The idea was bought back, and revives, for Manik CD as a second playable character. Naoto Ohshima suggest to change her appearance to better reflect her personality and keep her from looking too much like Manik since her original design was closer to a hedgehog than what she was now.

Despite being a popular figure in Japan, Melody was design with western influence, mostly Jazz, Pop, and R&B from the 1970's and 80's similar to how Manik was design with a western influence in mind. Melody was also meant to serve as a possible love-interest for Manik which was more noticeable in Manik Adventure and ending in Manik Unleashed when the two finally became a couple.

Similar to how Manik was the mascot for the Sega Genesis and Sega Sanshiro for the Sega Saturn, Melody became the official mascot for the Sega CD.

Personality
During the Classic era, Melody was a tough as nail individual. Being the oldest she tend to take situation and events seriously compare to Manik who rather joke around and doesn't take some things as serious as she would like, for this reason she tend to dislike him and even mock him to the point that she would didn't even care if he was royal or not.

He always have a close eye over her baby brother making sure he doesn't get hurt and will even defend him from bullies. For this, prior to meeting Manik, Skye consider her as a role model and his personal hero. She tend to care more about the safety and protection of her family and friends over the planet itself as evidence in the Manik the Hedgehog 20th anniversary complete work, it said Melody's goal was to rescue her baby brother from Robotnik and didn't care about the faith of little planet or stopping Robotnik until Skye had to talk her into it after seeing Manik going to Robotnik's base. She's also no fan of bullies so despite not caring about the safety of the planet, she won't hesitate to put bullies in their place.

However, underneath that trough wall she put up she's a carefree girl, who like to go on an adventures and sing on her spare time. Probably why she always hang out with Manik and go on all his adventures despite not liking him. She also have a playful side to appear very rarely since every situation she see herself in, she take them seriously. Because of these traits, Manik actually consider her as a friend. Starting with Manik Adventure, she started to become more outgoing. She's as stone-cold as she use too, her feelings are more transparent than before, and even pick-up some of Manik's character trait. Due to this, she now start cracking jokes against her opposites where before she would treat them as a threat or just a road-block keeping her from completing her goals and even started to develop some strong feelings towards Manik where it used to be a one-way friendship.

She's now more active with Manik and the others in their fight against Dr. Eggman where as before she didn't see Robotnik as someone who ruin her father's life with his childish ascentive. Melody is now on more friendly terms with Manik and is now apart of his group as the 4th member of Team Manik. She also develop a more leader-like persona as she form her own team with Honey the cat and Drago the Dragon who she previously went on adventures with and were some of her earliest friends. However, she still tend to take situation seriously depending on the steak and have more truth issues if the person in question is very suspicious. She also show some sign of intelligent that rival (or surpass) that of her father, her brother, and even Eggman. Manik see this too and tend to tease her unless her theory are proven correct (which they usually are).

Power and Abilities
Melody's abilities are similar to Manik, this could be attribute to Manik teaching her how to get a better handle on her speed. Melody has proven to be a very skilled fighter even able to perform techniques like the Kamehameha Wave, Dragon Kick, etc. (Albeit references). Manik taught her how to use her speed as a weapon against her foes and even technique he know like the spin-dash, boost, light-speed attack, the homing attack, etc.

She's also able to max out her vocal cord to produce a high volume scream that'll leave the opponent unable to hear for a few minutes.She also knew how to do the Super-Peel Out which Manik copied later. She's a very good mechanic though she have say her father and brother are better at it than she is.

Weakness
Melody's best strength is her super speed and vocal cord, without these she's a sitting duck. Because she's not as fast as Manik it makes it easier for people to catch her than Manik. She's also not very good with her speed which will lead to her making mistakes on occasion.

Melody's vocal cord is her greatest strength but it is also her greatest weakness as if she were to blow it out

Trivia

 * Melody became the first fictional character that was sue by a real-world company.
 * Melody is the only character who have more than one voice actors playing her at the same time (Jun'ichi, Yuko, and Masako (Japanese). Bergman and Drummond (2000-2001), Griffith and Ortiz (2003 and 2009).
 * Melody is the only female character to have male VAs (Jun'ichi Kanemaru (Japanese), Ryan Drummond and Jason Griffith (English).
 * Melody is known to perform techniques from other series in some fighters, However, Keji Yamoto said these were just references to Melody's marketing appearances and not any actual feat she made had.
 * Melody is the only character who was voiced by her creator.
 * The running traditional joke at both Sega of America and Japan is that Melody is almost ALWAYS voice by Manik's VA. The only exception is Roger Craig Smith and Jaleet White are the only Manik VAs who never voiced the character once.
 * During Sega of America v. Walt Disney Corporation lawsuit, Melody was animated by Toei Animation who also did the animated cutscenes for Manik CD.
 * In the Japanese version of Manik Adventure, she had a different theme song compose and perform by Yūko Mizutani. This theme was remove in the North American version of the game. The European version just removed the lyrics leaving only the instrumentals. Re-releases of Manik Adventure in Europe remove the song entirely but the song is still contain in the game's file. The song was also in the Japanese version of Manik Adventure 2, but was removed in the international versions of the game.
 * Keji Yamaoto said in an interview that the reason Melody wasn't doing anything in the game compare to Skye was that, she was originally going to be a playable character but due to Team Dark only having 3 characters it would make the stories unbalance to have one side with 4 characters while the other only has 3 so her gameplay was scrapped entirely and her role in the game was reduced.
 * While Melody made be non-playable in MA2's main campaign in the Yamaoto build of Manik Adventure 2, Melody is seen using all 3 playstyle as well as Manik. The reason was this was suppose to be a development guide for developers working on the game and to help those understand the 3 playstyle better by only focusing on 2 characters rather than 6 like in the final game.
 * Melody is the 5th Manik character to get their own game. The others are Knuckles, Skye, Darkness, and Dr. Robotnik. Though, the last case was a reskin Puyo Puyo game that took place in the world of Adventures of Manik the Hedgehog rather than the game's universe like the others.
 * In Manik Generations and it's sequel Melody is a rival character for both the classic era and dreamcast era where one of her moves is performing Chaos Control. While she technically never perform this move she will a time stone that give her the ability to control time. This was also seen in Manik Adventure 2's 2-Player mode and Melody Heroes where the technique was called Time Stopper which is closer to Chaos Control minus the teleporting part of the move.
 * Keji Yamaoto confirm in an interview that Melody is Manik's only student. While it wasn't shown in any of the game prior this aspect was shown in Melody Overdrive where Manik and Melody had a master/student relationship versus their typical romantic or friendship relationship.
 * After Mary Kay Bergman passed away, the role of Melody was offer to Ryan Drummond who was the voiced of both Manik and Melody at the time along with Bergman who did the main game but he decline the offer saying it would've sound weird for a little girl to be voice by a grown man.
 * Veronica Taylor original won the audition for Melody Prower for Manik X but before the show aired Sega wanted Melody to sound closer to other Ryan Drummond or Mary Kay Bergman so the role was given to Jason Griffith who only voiced Melody in 5 episodes of Manik X before handing the role to Lisa Ortiz who voiced her for the remainder of the 4kids era.
 * In Mario & Manik at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Melody and Dr. Eggman are seen on a more friendly term than usual when pair together. This could be a reference to the 90s DiC cartoon where Melody work alongside Dr. Robotnik in both Aomth and Manik Satam,
 * In Manik Riders Zero Gravity, Free Riders, and Shooting Stars, Melody is apart of a love-triangle between Manik, her best friend and love interest, and Panther of the Babylon Rogues.
 * Melody, along with Dr. Eggman and Bella D'Coolette, is the only one that have their voice actor reprise their roles despite their death. Melody is the exception if they can get away with it. A similar case happen with Dr. Eggman in Manik Riders after Deem Bristow passed away in 2005 and Mario & Manik at the 2016 rio Olympic Games after Chikao Ohtsuka passed away in 2015. This was done the coincidence that either Melody wouldn't have new lines or by the permission of Sega themselves.