Code Lyoko

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{{Infobox Television | show_name = Code Lyoko | image = Image:Code lyoko.jpg | caption = In 3-D, from left to right: Odd, Yumi, Aelita, and Ulrich.
In 2-D, from left to right: Jeremie, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd (holding Kiwi). | format = Animated television series | runtime = 26 minutes approx. | creator = Thomas Romain
Tania Palumbo | starring = Barbara Weber-Scaff
David Gasman
Matthew Géczy
Mirabelle Kirkland
Sharon Mann | country = France | network = France 3 | first_aired = September 3, 2003 | last_aired = Present | num_episodes = 97 | website = http://www.codelyoko.com/ | imdb_id = 0417311 | tv_com_id = 26269 }} Code Lyoko is a French animated television series featuring both an anime-influenced style and computer-generated imagery, produced by Antefilms during the first season and MoonScoop during the second, in association with the France 3 television network and Canal J. Code Lyoko is about a group of four boarding school students enrolled at Kadic Junior High School, named Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi. The students try to help a virtual girl named Aelita leave the virtual world of Lyoko, which is found inside a supercomputer housed in the basement of an abandoned factory near Kadic, and enter the real world.

A megalomaniac digital entity, named Xana, bent on world domination, has taken over the supercomputer in charge of Lyoko. It attacks the real world by activating towers (usually one at a time), which act as links to the real world. If the group is able to get Aelita to the activated tower(s) out of the more than forty scattered about Lyoko's five 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 (going back in time cannot bring back the dead), and deal with the various personality clashes they have with them at the same time.

Contents

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The story so far

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the first season, Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich would travel to the virtual world of Lyoko in order to stop Xana's attacks on the real world. To do so, they had to help Aelita, a virtual girl who lived there, get past Xana's monsters and deactivate the activated tower. Jeremie would keep track of them from a laboratory terminal in the factory. The terminal allows him to keep track of the situation in Lyoko, warn them of danger, and to monitor their life points, which are a measure of their viability inside the virtual world, similar to hit points in computer and video games or role-playing games. If one of the virtualized players lost their life points, they merely devirtualized; however, since Aelita was connected to the virtual world, she would be lost forever if she were to lose all of her life points. Her inability to leave Lyoko prevented them from shutting down the supercomputer that contained Xana.

While fighting against Xana, Jeremie worked on a program to materialize Aelita. He eventually developed a program to do so, but Xana had taken measures to keep Aelita linked to the supercomputer. Jeremie believed a virus to be responsible for the link. Thanks to the link, Aelita was forced to remain on Lyoko to keep watch over Xana.

In the second season, Jeremie developed a way to detect activated towers instantly, allowing Aelita to take up permanent residency on Earth; however, Xana still remained a threat. Even though she could now move between both worlds, she could only be devirtualized by Jeremie through the program he developed and a tower, unlike the others, who still return to the real world if they lose all their life points.

In the episode "Unchartered Territory", the group discovered a mysterious fifth sector of Lyoko, known as Carthage, a massive sphere floating in virtual space. It is accessed through the use of the Transport Orb. It was found to be Xana's home sector. All of Xana's data could be accessed from an access panel on the outside of the sphere. It was in this episode that Xana started sending the Scyphozoa after Aelita to steal her memories.

In the episode "A Great Day", it was discovered that supercomputer is a quantum computer, and that return trips made the supercomputer more powerful. That, in turn, made Xana stronger. Jeremie theorized that the time reversions had the effect of increasing the base of the supercomputer's calculation capacity qubits. From then on, the heroes refrained from reverting time as much as possible, so that Xana's power growth was kept in check. Therefore, they had to be exceptionally careful to ensure the integrity of the current time stream. This proved more difficult in recent episodes, such as "Attack of the Zombies" and "Ultimatum". Even without the jumps to increase its power, Xana seemed to get stronger with each attack.

In the episode "Franz Hopper", a man claiming to be Franz Hopper showed up and offered to help in the fight against Xana. He turned out to be one of Xana's clones, however, and nearly got rid of the group. The clone was defeated and the others learned that the real Franz Hopper was trapped within Lyoko. Later, in the episode "Contact", the real Franz Hopper managed to contact the group through Sissi and offer his help.

The final two episodes of the second season, "Revelation" and "The Key", most of the mysteries surrounding Aelita, Lyoko, Franz Hopper, Xana, and the supercomputer itself were revealed. When Franz Hopper's diary was decoded in "Revelation", it revealed most of the history of the things mentioned above in that episode and the one following it.

It was discovered that Aelita was actually a human, but had the memories of her human life stolen from her by Xana. It was these missing memories that kept her linked to the supercomputer, and not a virus as Jeremie had first believed. She was also revealed to be the daughter of Franz Hopper. He had virtualized her along with himself to escape government agents that had been pursuing them.

The mystery surrounding Franz Hopper and the supercomputer was also revealed. He had originally been working on a military project known as Project Carthage, which was intended to disrupt enemy communications. This seems to be centered around the sector known as Carthage. For a reason that has not been made clear, he wished its destruction. He created the supercomputer, Lyoko, and Xana to this end.

While working on destroying Carthage, he discovered the return trip capacity of the supercomputer. He used this feature 2546 times (slightly less than seven years) so he could finish his work. During this time, Xana gained independence, though Franz did not seem aware of this. He did comment that he felt like someone was watching him, but this might have been simple paranoia on his part.

For a reason that is not made clear, Franz shifted the focus of his project. He redesigned Lyoko to be a safe haven for him and his daughter. He took the access codes to Lyoko (referred to as "keys") and split them between himself and Aelita. When the government agents finally came to arrest him, presumably for stealing and/or trying to destroy government property, he and his daughter escaped to Lyoko. Xana used the opportunity to imprison Franz, taking his half of the keys, and to steal Aelita's human memories.

Finally, in the episode "The Key", Xana finally manages to steal the rest of Aelita's memories. This gives Xana the other half of the keys, allowing him to escape from the supercomputer. This left Aelita in a coma-like state or completely dead. Jeremie believes it to be the latter. Franz Hopper seemingly sacrificed his own life to revive his daughter. Doing so restored all of her human memories and severed her link to the supercomputer. Unfortunately, Xana's escape made this a moot point. It is unknown if Franz survived the event, but the group promises to look for him.

Now that Xana is free from the supercomputer, it is no longer limited by the towers. It can attack anywhere at any time. The group promises to continue fighting against Xana, though they are not quite sure how they will do that just yet. Template:Endspoiler

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Characters

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Primary characters

Template:Main The main characters are Aelita (known as Aelita Stones at Kadic), Jeremie Belpois, Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, and Xana. The first five are the protagonists while the last one is the antagonist. There are also several supporting characters that appear in most of the episodes. These two groups make up the primary cast for the show.

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Secondary characters

Template:Main 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 roles in single episodes, though. All of the various characters are sorted by their current grade.

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Monsters in Lyoko

Template:Main There are many types of monsters in Lyoko. Xana creates them in order to keep the towers it activates safe. Some are a mere nuisence 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.

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 is included for the sake of completion.

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Episodes

Template:Main Code Lyoko has a total of 97 episodes, the first 52 of which have aired. The following 45 are still in production.

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First season

Overall Season Episode Title Airdate (France) Airdate (U.S.)
01 101 "Teddygozilla" September 3, 2003 April 19, 2004
02 102 "Seeing Is Believing" September 10, 2003 April 20, 2004
03 103 "Holiday in the Fog" September 17, 2003 April 21, 2004
04 104 "Log Book" September 24, 2003 April 22, 2004
05 105 "Big Bug" October 1, 2003 April 23, 2004
06 106 "Cruel Dilemma" October 8, 2003 April 26, 2004
07 107 "Image Problem" October 15, 2003 April 27, 2004
08 108 "End of Take" October 22, 2003 April 28, 2004
09 109 "Satellite" October 29, 2003 April 29, 2004
10 110 "The Girl of the Dreams" November 5, 2003 April 30, 2004
11 111 "Plagued" November 12, 2003 May 3, 2004
12 112 "Swarming Attack" November 19, 2003 May 4, 2004
13 113 "Just in Time" November 26, 2003 May 5, 2004
14 114 "The Trap" December 3, 2003 May 6, 2004
15 115 "Laughing Fit" December 10, 2003 May 7, 2004
16 116 "Claustrophobia" December 17, 2003 May 10, 2004
17 117 "Amnesia" December 24, 2003 May 11, 2004
18 118 "Killer Music" December 31, 2003 May 12, 2004
19 119 "Frontier" January 7, 2004 May 13, 2004
20 120 "The Robots" January 14, 2004 May 14, 2004
21 121 "Zero Gravity Zone" January 21, 2004 May 17, 2004
22 122 "Routine" January 28, 2004 May 18, 2004
23 123 "Rock Bottom?" February 4, 2004 May 19, 2004
24 124 "Ghost Channel" February 11, 2004 May 20, 2004
25 125 "Code: Earth" February 18, 2004 May 21, 2004
26 126 "False Start" February 25, 2004 May 24, 2004
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Second season

Overall Season Title Airdate (France) Airdate (U.S.)
27 201 "New Order" August 31, 2005 September 19, 2005
28 202 "Unchartered Territory" September 7, 2005 September 20, 2005
29 203 "Exploration" September 14, 2005 September 21, 2005
30 204 "A Great Day" September 21, 2005 September 22, 2005
31 205 "Mister Pück" September 28, 2005 September 23, 2005
32 206 "Saint Valentine's Day" October 5, 2005 September 26, 2005
33 207 "Final Mix" October 12, 2005 September 27, 2005
34 208 "Missing Link" October 19, 2005 September 28, 2005
35 209 "The Chips are Down" October 26, 2005 September 29, 2005
36 210 "Marabounta" November 2, 2005 September 30, 2005
37 211 "Common Interest" November 9, 2005 October 3, 2005
38 212 "Temptation" December 7, 2005 November 25, 2005
39 213 "A Bad Turn" November 16, 2005 October 26, 2005
40 214 "Attack of the Zombies" November 23, 2005 October 4, 2005
41 215 "Ultimatum" November 30, 2005 October 5, 2005
42 216 "A Fine Mess" December 14, 2005 October 6, 2005
43 217 "Xana's Kiss" January 11, 2006 October 7, 2005
44 218 "Vertigo" January 11, 2006 October 24, 2005
45 219 "Cold War" January 18, 2006 October 25, 2005
46 220 "Déjà Vu" January 18, 2006 October 27, 2005
47 221 "Tip-Top Shape" January 25, 2006 October 28, 2005
48 222 "Is Anybody Out There?" January 25, 2006 November 1, 2005
49 223 "Franz Hopper" February 1, 2006 October 31, 2005
50 224 "Contact" February 1, 2006 November 25, 2005
51 225 "Revelation" February 8, 2006 December 9, 2005
52 226 "The Key" February 8, 2006 December 9, 2005
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Third and fourth seasons

MoonScoop has announced that 45 new episodes for Code Lyoko have been ordered, and are set to air throughout 2006 and 2007. The first announcement about the new episodes can be found here. All of the expected dates are for France, so the dates in the U.S. will likely be slightly later.

According to information (in French) on CodeLyoko.net, including an interview with one of the writers from the show, the 45 episodes will be split into two new seasons. The third season will be 15 episodes long and will serve to bridge the gap between the second and fourth seasons. It will be airing in September of 2006. The fourth season will be 30 episodes long and will go even deeper into the history of Franz Hopper and Lyoko. The first half of it will air in March of 2007. The second half will air near the end of 2007. It will be accompanied by a major merchandising campaign to cover a broad range of licensed products, including toys, clothes, stationary, and school bags. A excerpt from the interview is below, converted into English.

There will also be an original animated prequel, medium-length film about how the group originally discovered Lyoko. It will be approximately 52 minutes long. Cartoon Network currently has it ordered, whereas other stations have not agreed on anything and may have it release straight-to-DVD in France. Whether this prequel will actually be made is uncertain. It is believed that it may have been cancelled, and the history of Lyoko will be instead be shown through flashbacks or in a two-part episode in one of the new seasons. Template:Quotation

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Show changes from season to season

  • New monsters were and still are being added, as happened in the first season.
  • Where the first season was a standard "episodic" format (the heroes solve the problem, revert time, and wait for the next attack), the second season has taken more of a story arc approach, with some stories building on the one(s) previous. Also, return trips are fewer now, due to the fact that it makes Xana stronger.
  • Each member of the group receives vehicles. 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." All three vehicles can fly. Aelita usually rides as a passenger with either Odd or Yumi, but she has ridden with Ulrich on occasion. When she's alone on Lyoko, she usually uses the Overboard or the Overwing, but she has used all three vehicles at least once. Because Jeremie does not visit Lyoko regularly, he doesn't have his own vehicle, nor has he used any of the current ones.
  • Jeremie has developed a new tower-detection program (called the super scan) that detects activated towers instantly.
  • Aelita spends more time on Earth in the second season. She becomes enrolled at Kadic in the first episode of the second season, "New Order", under the name of Aelita Stones, posing as a cousin of Odd. This is thanks to Jeremie's super scan program.
  • The CG quality improves noticeably in Lyoko. Even the 3-D versions of Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi look more up-to-date. As far as the various sectors are concerned, the Forest seems to have the most changes.
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Other media

Template:Main Several Code Lyoko products have been or are being planned to be released. This includes several DVDs, an book based on the episodes "Teddygozilla" and "Plagued", a video game, and a line of toys. A line of clothing and other accessories is also being planned.

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Trivia

In these various films, the protagonists would often hide in a lunch room (or a similar enclosed space), were constantly arguing, and the zombies had a bluish color. Several of them took place mostly at night. In addition, Barbara in the 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead was slowly losing her grasp on reality. The lunchroom lady, Rosa Petitjean acted similar to Barbara. Also, William attacked Jeremie for trying to mutiny his leadership, a direct reference to Ben shooting Harry Cooper in Night of the Living Dead. Bubba (the smart zombie in Day of the Dead) was similar to the zombified Jeremie.
  • Aelita's name may be Russian in origin, and based on the title character from the 1924 Soviet movie Aelita: Queen of Mars (see the IMDb article).
  • Many scenes in the program are reused, particularly: the characters travelling to the factory, using the factory lift, using the scanners, Jeremie using the supercomputer, and Aelita deactivating a tower. 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 supercomputer was referred to in the first season as the "super calculator." This is a direct translation of the French term "super calculateur." After the episode "False Start", the term "supercomputer" is used.
  • In the beginning of "A Fine Mess", Ulrich flips a coin to see who would come out of the scanners first. A fast eye will catch that the coin is a euro. It should also be noted that the drink machines on campus and the ones at the hospital use euros.
  • When Peter Duncan steals nuclear fuel to recharge the supercomputer, the soldiers guarding said material are wielding FAMAS rifles, the standard-issue rifle for the French armed forces.
  • In the episode where Xana takes control of a laser-equipped satellite, the targeting system from the satellite's point of view shows that Kadic is in France. Later, 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.
  • In the episode "Cold War", when Xana causes a snowstorm, Jim's pocket thremometer displays the temperature in Celsius rather than Farenheit.
    • Also, if you are to compare the Farenheit temperature that Jim gives to the information on the thremometer, they are different.
  • Yumi has a Totoro doll (a character that looks like a giant bunny or cat from the Japanese animated movie, My Neighbor Totoro) seen in her room in the first season episode "Laughing Fit". After this episode, it is replaced with an unnamed stuffed cat.
  • Xana's apparent proclivity for attacking Yumi in the first season was extremely noticeable to some fans, who noticed the phenomenon in five consecutive episodes ("Cruel Dilema" to "The Girl of the Dreams"). This event is often referred to as "Pick on Yumi Week".
  • In the second season, Xana tends to attack Jeremie on more occasions than the the rest of the group. The exact reason for this is unknown, but it might be because Jeremie is the only one who is well-versed in all the functions of the supercomputer. Removing him would seriously hinder the ability of the others to stop Xana's attacks. In several episodes, Xana's victims and ghosts use one method or another to try and kill Jeremie. These methods range from electrocution to suffocation. This is not as noticeable as "Pick on Yumi Week" (see above), but he is the only character that Xana's ghosts attack directly.
  • The Cantonese title of Code Lyoko is 至Net奇兵 (zi3 Net kei4 beng1, which means the smartest gang on the net). However it is often incorrectly claimed that the Chinese title of this series is 密碼 : 利奧高 or 代號 : 利奧高 which has the same meaning of Code Lyoko.
    • 利奧高 or 李奧高 are the sound translation of Lyoko in Chinese.
      • Code Lyoko has not been dubbed into Japanese or Putonghua as of yet.
  • Some people have noticed a similarity between the Capcom video game series Megaman Battle Network and Code Lyoko. This is because of the similar theme of battling in a virtual world, as well as the effects caused in the real world by the villians in the series.
  • Many people in the U.S. find Code Lyoko somewhat similar in certain ways to The Matrix, possibly due to the similar theme of battling in a virtual world against an evil artificial intelligence. There are also other similarities, such as:
    • The code seen in the background of scenes involving the supercomputer (most noticeably when talking to Aelita through the computer) and the code seen in The Matrix. This is called the "Matrix Effect," which is characterized by downwards scrolling glyphs on the screen. The screensaver on Jeremie's computer shows a similar effect, but with upward-scrolling binary code instead of downward-scrolling glyphs.
    • Jeremie's role is very similar to that of the operators in The Matrix; he remains in the real world to guide and warn those in the virtual world of Lyoko. The three-monitor setup in the factory is also very similar to that used by the operators.
    • Characters have to be sent to the virtual world in a non-trivial manner. The main difference is that, in The Matrix, only the mind of a person gets input into the computer system, called "jacking in." In Code Lyoko, their whole body gets virtualized, via the scanners.
    • Another similarity is the change in appearance of characters in the virtual world, compared to their appearances in the real world.
      • In The Matrix, this is explained as 'Residual Self Image' – a character's virtual appearance is influenced by their subconscious. This manifests as a change of clothing, and removal of "holes" and "plugs" (used to jack in to the Matrix) from the body.
      • On Lyoko, the characters' appearances are the result of customized templates stored in the supercomputer. It's mentioned that they are kept in the same part of the supercomputer that Jeremie stored Hopper's diary in.
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See also

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External links

Template:Code Lyokoes:Code Lyoko fr:Code Lyoko pl:Kod Lyoko zh:至Net奇兵

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