Code Lyoko

Code Lyoko
File:Code lyoko.jpg The opening title for the first season of the show. From left to right: Aelita, Ulrich, Yumi, Odd (holding Kiwi), and Jeremie.
Created by	Tania Palumbo Thomas Romain
Starring	Jodi Forrest David Gasman Matthew Géczy Mirabelle Kirkland Sharon Mann Barbara Weber-Scaff
Theme music composer	Franck Keller and Ygal Amar
Opening theme	"A World Without Danger"
Country of origin	France
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	97 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	26 minutes approx.
Original release
Network	France 3, Canal J
Release	September 3, 2003 – November 10, 2007

Code Lyoko is a French animated television series featuring both conventional animation and CGI animation. It was produced by Antefilms during the first season and is currently being produced by MoonScoop, both in association with the France 3 television network and Canal J.

Code Lyoko is about a group of five boarding school students, enrolled at Kadic Junior High School, named Aelita, Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi. The students travel to the virtual world of Lyoko — which is found in a supercomputer housed in the basement of an abandoned factory near Kadic Junior High School (which they attend) — to fight against a megalomaniacal digital entity named Xana.

Plot

Main article: List of Code Lyoko episodes

The artificial intelligence known as Xana is obsessed with world domination. Towards that end, he (referred to as "he" in the series) has taken over the supercomputer in charge of the virtual world of Lyoko, which he largely dominates. Xana is also able to attack the real world by activating towers (usually one at a time), which act as links to the real world. When these towers are activated, Xana is able to seize control of other computers and electrical systems. If the group is able to get Aelita to the activated tower(s) out of the forty scattered about Lyoko's four main regions, she can deactivate the tower(s) and neutralize Xana's attack on the real world; then they can use the supercomputer to return to the past, leaving no one except themselves to remember any of the events that transpired. To complicate the situation, they must do this while ensuring their classmates and teachers are not killed (as going back in time cannot bring back the dead), and deal with the many clashes of personality at the same time.

First season

The first season of the show has very little plot development. The only major plot developments are made in the two-part finale. The rest of the episodes are mostly filler. Until the finale, each episode consists of the group discovering an attack, stopping the attack, and resetting time to cover it up. Other sub-plots are included, such as their relationships with one another and other students and teachers at the school. Usually the interaction with their classmates and teachers early in each episode contributes to Xana's attack. Throughout these events, Jeremie works on a program to materialize Aelita in order to shut down the supercomputer safely. He eventually develops the program in the two-part finale, but Xana takes measures to keep Aelita linked to the supercomputer, preventing the group from shutting it down without killing her in the process.

Second season

The second season, in contrast to the first, is much more plot-focused, though a decent portion of the episodes are still filler. The animation is more realistic and detailed, and Jim and Sissi's personalities have changed significantly, though some traces of their old personalities exist in some form. Aelita lives on Earth in the second season. In the first episode of the second season, she enrolls at Kadic under the name of Aelita Stones. She poses as a cousin of Odd, using a forged birth certificate created by Jeremie. Jeremie's new super scan program also means that Aelita doesn't need to stay on Lyoko to check for Xana's activity. Aelita also begins having visions of a life she supposedly never lived, and a man named Franz Hopper is shown to have connections to Lyoko. Also adding to the group's troubles is a new student named William Dunbar, who has begun to take an interest in Yumi.

Each member of the group now has vehicles to quickly transport them in Lyoko: Odd gets a hover skateboard called an "Overboard," Ulrich gets a one-wheeled motorcycle called an "Overbike," and Yumi gets a hover scooter called an "Overwing." Aelita can ride any vehicle by herself if necessary, but usually rides with another person. A fifth sector, Carthage, is discovered in Lyoko and turns out to be Xana's home sector, from which all of his data can be accessed, so the group goes on several journeys into this sector to do so. At the same time, Xana begins sending the Scyphozoa after Aelita to steal her memories, and has created three other new monsters, as well. The operations of the supercomputer are also somewhat demystified. Return trips are fewer (though still common) now, because it makes Xana stronger. Eventually, Xana's true purpose is revealed, as are the origins of the supercomputer, Lyoko, and Aelita herself.

Third season

In the third season, Xana has been strangely quiet in both the real world and Lyoko, having done nothing during the group's summer vacation. It still needs a computer to exist, but is no longer limited to a specific one, instead being free to roam the internet at will. Jeremie has developed a new scanning program capable of tracking Xana, which reveals that Xana appears to be residing in the United States, but lacks the means to strike against Xana. Jeremie's current goal at the moment is to find a way to transfer the group into the internet.

Because Aelita had her memories returned by Franz Hopper, she can be devirtualized normally. She even has a new power to defend herself with in Lyoko — energy blasts. Also, Yumi has decided against having a relationship with Ulrich, preferring to remain just friends.

In Carthage, the group finds Lyoko's core, which Xana wants destroyed. Being free of the supercomputer, Xana's attacks are far more powerful. Tower activation is still required to initiate them, but Xana can perform attacks on levels far beyond what he could when imprisoned. Xana can possess mass numbers of people at once, making it that much more difficult for the group to make their way from the school to the factory. In the hopes of isolating the group from Carthage, since destroying Lyoko directly would prove difficult, Xana has turned his sights to Lyoko's sectors, hoping to remove their ability to access Carthage by deleting the sectors they use to get there. By using the Scyphozoa to possess Aelita, Xana can use her to enter the code "Xana" in a passage tower. This gives Xana full access to the sector, after which he can delete it. Despite their best efforts, Xana eventually succeeds in deleting all four sectors. Luckily, Jeremie finds a way to access Carthage directly.

Seeing that their numbers aren't enough against Xana's increasing power, the group decides to add William Dunbar to the team to balance things out. This proves to be a disastrous mistake, however, as during William's first trip to Lyoko, Xana uses the Scyphozoa to possess him. Using William, Xana is easily able to overpower the other Lyoko warriors and destroy Lyoko's core. The act renders the supercomputer useless. Within the empty supercomputer, William transforms into a dark version of himself, now possessed by Xana to an even greater degree. Afterwards, Jeremie gets a coded message from the internet from none other than Franz Hopper, who somehow survived the destruction of Lyoko.

Fourth season

In the fourth season, Lyoko is recreated, allowing the group to continue tracking Xana. Traveling into the digital sea in Jeremie's latest creation, a submersible ship called the Skidbladnir, the group finds a number of "Replikas", which are single-sector recreations of Lyoko. Each of these Replikas is controlled by another supercomputer, which is in turn controlled by Xana. To stop Xana once and for all, Jeremie devises a way to materialize his friends at the site of these supercomputers with their Lyoko abilities intact, giving them the necessary firepower to dismantle them, all while continuing to battle the evil William. The group has new outfits and weapons to accompany the new season.

William is controlled by Xana, and acts as a barrier in Lyoko, the Digital Sea, and the Replikas. He is eventually freed, and in the second-to-last episode, Franz Hopper gives up his life to help in stopping Xana. Xana is defeated, and the group finally turns off the supercomputer.

Characters

Primary characters

Main article: List of primary characters in Code Lyoko

The main characters are Aelita (known as Aelita Stones at Kadic), Jeremie Belpois, Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, William Dunbar, and Xana. There are also several supporting characters that appear in most of the episodes. These two groups make up the primary cast for the show.

Secondary characters

Main article: List of secondary characters in Code Lyoko

There are many characters in Code Lyoko that do not contribute much, if anything, to the overall plot of the show. Several of them have played major roles in single episodes, though. All of the various characters are sorted by their current grade.

Monsters

Main article: List of monsters in Code Lyoko

There are many types of monsters in Lyoko. Xana creates them in order to keep the towers it activates safe. Some are a mere nuisance while others are a major threat. The ones that can be considered a nuisance make up for this fact by travelling in packs. All of them, however, try to impede the group. The monsters remain until they are destroyed or a return trip is activated. Xana has eleven types of monsters so far. Odd, Ulrich and Yumi each have special weapons in Lyoko in order to destroy the monsters. Aelita mostly relies on the protection of the others when it comes to dealing with the monsters in the first two seasons, but gains a weapon in the third.

Other monsters exist that don't fall into the same category as Xana's monsters. One is a monster Jeremie produced, called the Marabounta. It appears in only one episode. There is also an entity known as the Transport Orb. It's a giant white sphere with an Eye of Xana printed on it, like all of Xana's monsters. Unlike the other monsters, however, its only purpose is to ferry passengers from the edge of any region to the center of the fifth sector, Carthage, and back again. Both Jeremie and Xana can access it at will. This entity's classification as a monster is arguable, but it is included for the sake of completion.

Also, there are monsters located in the digital sea. These monsters must be destroyed using torpedoes shot from the Skidbladnir.

Time travel

To undo any mistakes or unwanted damage caused by one of Xana's attacks, or any other unfavorable situation, Jeremie can use the supercomputer to go back in time roughly a day. Jeremie calls it "return to the past" or a "return trip" for short. Anyone who has been scanned in a scanner will also go back in time with their memories. On top of this, any injuries inflicted on them before the return trip will be healed. However, any deaths will not be reversed. After traveling back in time, they can use their knowledge of the future to alter events in their favor or the favor of others. This usually entails taking steps to keep one of Xana's attacks from taking place, though they do use the knowledge to prevent other unfavorable events that might not be related to Xana, such as the destruction of Jeremie's Kiwi 2 robot in "The Robots".

As a side effect of the return trips, the supercomputer gains a qubit. With each added qubit, the supercomputer's processing power doubles. This is discovered in the second season, after Xana activates the return trip mechanism over and over to quickly build up the supercomputer's power. After this point, Jeremie tries to limit return trips to where it's absolutely necessary.

Each return trip manifests itself as a pillar of white light, emitted by the supercomputer. The pillar then expands into a bubble-shaped wave that engulfs everything in sight. The distance the wave is tracked to varies from episode to episode. The furthest it has been tracked to is the distance of a satellite in Earth's orbit in the episode "Satellite".

Though anyone not scanned into the supercomputer is supposed to be unable to remember events after a return trip, William Dunbar seems to have been able to recall events related to the supercomputer and the factory despite never having been scanned. However, these memories only surfaced in dreams, and he dismissed them as such until Yumi told him otherwise.

Location

The show is set in France, which can be seen in various scenes throughout the series. The episode "Satellite", for instance, shows a military satellite zooming in on France to target the school. Despite this, the English dub of the series occasionally confuses this fact. For example, in the episode "Attack of the Zombies", Milly asks Sissi what her feelings are about her father starting a language-exchange program with France despite them already being in France. The English version also tends to use American terms in place of the French equivalent, further confusing this fact.

Reused scenes

Many scenes in the program are reused, particularly transitional scenes. Because of this, there are often slight continuity errors – characters might change expression when entering the factory lift, or travelling scenes might show Odd hopping on his skateboard only to have Yumi riding away in the next scene. The intro sequence changes in the transition from the first season to the second, but not in the third. In the third season, the logo in the final scene is merely recolored green. The fourth season intro is done in the same style as the last two seasons, but using new clips. CGI scenes are also reused occasionally, though with different backgrounds in some cases.

Other media

Main article: List of Code Lyoko media

Several Code Lyoko products have been or are being planned for release, including DVDs, a book based on the episodes "Teddygozilla" and "Plagued," two video games, and a collection of toys. A collection of apparel and other accessories is also in development.

External links

• The official Code Lyoko website.
• MoonScoop, the distribution company for the program.
• Code Lyoko – The Web Site, in English, French, and Spanish; a very extensive fan site. It appears to have input from Sophie Decroisette, the director of writing, on Code Lyoko.
• Codelyoko.fr, an extensive fansite with clips, episode guides, and galleries, among other things.
• The personal website of Frédéic Perrin, lead background painter for Code Lyoko. Contains a gallery of production artwork.