Code Lyoko

Plot

Jeremy Belpois, an 8th grade prodigy attending boarding school at Kadic Academy, discovers a quantum supercomputer in an abandoned factory near the school. Upon activating it, he discovers a virtual world called Lyoko, consisting of four separate environments known as "sectors" and inhabited by an artificially intelligent girl named Aelita. He also learns of X.A.N.A., a fully autonomous, malevolent, and highly intelligent multi-agent system that also dwells within the Supercomputer. Using structures on Lyoko known as Towers to gain access to the real world, X.A.N.A. can possess electronics, living beings, and other targets like a virus to wreak havoc. X.A.N.A. is determined to eliminate anyone aware of the Supercomputer's existence to achieve freedom to conquer Earth and destroy humanity.

In Season 1, Jeremy works to materialize Aelita into the real world and stop attacks caused by X.A.N.A. He is aided by his three friends, Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, and Yumi Ishiyama, collectively known as the Lyoko Warriors, whom he virtualizes into Lyoko through devices known as scanners. They achieve this by escorting Aelita to various Towers on Lyoko while under attack from hostile, X.A.N.A.-controlled programs known as monsters. Once a Tower is deactivated by Aelita, Jeremy can launch the "Return to the Past" program, which sends the world back in time and undoes damage caused by X.A.N.A., though anyone scanned into the Supercomputer retains their memory of the events. In the episode "Code: Earth," Aelita is finally materialized, but the group discovers that X.A.N.A. had planted a virus inside of her which will kill her if the Supercomputer is turned off. They realize that they cannot destroy X.A.N.A. without destroying Aelita in the process.

In Season 2, Aelita adjusts to life in the real world, under the name Aelita Stone, while Jeremy attempts to develop an antivirus program to free her from X.A.N.A.'s influence. On Lyoko, a fifth sector is discovered and the group explores more of Lyoko's secrets and mysteries. They begin to uncover information about a mysterious man named Franz Hopper, the supposed creator of the Supercomputer, Lyoko, and X.A.N.A. who went missing ten years ago. It is eventually discovered that Hopper is alive, but went into hiding in the uncharted parts of Lyoko to avoid X.A.N.A. Meanwhile, X.A.N.A. attempts to steal the Keys to Lyoko, lines of code which it can use to escape from the confines of the Supercomputer into the internet, from Aelita's memory. At the end of the season, the group discovers that Aelita is actually human and the biological daughter of Hopper, and, rather than being infected with a virus, is instead missing a fragment of herself. In "The Key," X.A.N.A. tricks them with an imposter, succeeding in stealing Aelita's memory and escaping the Supercomputer. Aelita appears to perish as a result, but is revived when Hopper restores her along with her missing fragment: the memories of her life on Earth before she was virtualized on Lyoko. We still never get any information on Aelita's mother, we don't ever really figure out whether or not she's even alive.

Characters

Lyoko Warriors

Jeremy Belpois

Voiced by: Raphaëlle Bruneau (French); Sharon Mann (English)

A prodigy student who finds and starts up the factory's Supercomputer while looking for parts to build a robot. In doing so, he reawakened Aelita, the virtual world of Lyoko, and the malevolent multi-agent system X.A.N.A. His goals are mainly driven by his desire to protect Aelita, whom he has a crush on, and save her from the Supercomputer and X.A.N.A. by materializing her on Earth. As part of the group, he specializes in programming new ways to defeat X.A.N.A. and monitors the group while they are on Lyoko. Because he is not very athletic and more computer savvy, Jeremy almost never goes to Lyoko, only going there twice and vowing to never go there afterwards. His workaholic attitude occasionally puts a strain on his relationships with the other four members of the group, who frequently refer to him as "Einstein". Once the Tower has been deactivated by Aelita, Jeremy will launch a "Return to the Past" to undo the damages caused by X.A.N.A.

Aelita Schaeffer

Voiced by: Sophie Landresse (French); Sharon Mann (English)

Mainly known by her alias Aelita Stones, she is the smartest of the group alongside Jeremy. At the beginning of the series, she was trapped within Lyoko inside the Supercomputer. She was originally thought to be an AI until it was revealed that she is the daughter of Franz Hopper, the creator of the world of Lyoko. When she was young, she lost her mother and a group of suited men implied to be government agents came to her home, causing her and Franz to flee and virtualize themselves on Lyoko. Between the virtualization and Jeremy's discovery of the Supercomputer, X.A.N.A. stole an important memory fragment that inhibited her from becoming fully human again. After this fragment is retrieved, she is no longer linked to the Supercomputer and becomes human again, but often has nightmares of her past life. She later enrolls as a boarder at Kadic under the alias Aelita Stones, claiming to be Odd's cousin. She reciprocates Jeremy's feelings for her, but he often strains their relationship by overlooking Aelita and her passions in favor of working on the Supercomputer. She is nicknamed "Princess" by her friends. Aelita is the only one capable of deactivating Towers on Lyoko to completely neutralize X.A.N.A.'s attacks. On Lyoko, she has an elf-like appearance similar to that of "Mr. Pück," a toy elf from her forgotten childhood. She has the ability to create or remove objects, such as rocks or bridges, from the virtual environment, which is called "creativity" by Jeremie. She had no weapons or offensive abilities until season 3, when she developed the ability to create "energy fields," pink balls of plasma that can be thrown or used to block enemy fire from a distance. In the fourth season, Jeremy programmed light pink-white angel wings as part of her new virtual attire, allowing her to fly and carry one person; the star-shaped bracelet she wears allows her to activate them by waving her hand over it.

Villains

X.A.N.A.

X.A.N.A. is an evil, powerful, and ruthless multi-agent system-based AI computer virus who seeks world domination and serves as the main antagonist of the series. Originally created by Franz Hopper to destroy Project Carthage, a military communications system that Hopper had previously been involved with and which he sought to prevent the French government from gaining access to, it evolved and achieved self-awareness due to Hopper's repeated returns to the past. After it betrayed Hopper and trapped him and his daughter Aelita inside Lyoko, Hopper had no choice but to shut down the Supercomputer to stop its rampage. After being reawakened in the present day, X.A.N.A. continues to wreak havoc on Earth and displays no mercy towards those who stand in its way. It grows smarter and more powerful with each return in time and can think of greater plans and goals beyond random destruction. As a digital program, X.A.N.A. has no physical form and is unable to leave the Supercomputer. Instead, it activates Lyoko "Towers" to send manifestations of itself to the real world, which can only be stopped by deactivating the Towers. On Earth, X.A.N.A. appears as a powerful virus that infiltrates networks and can manifest ghostly specters from outlets, which are the closest it has to a physical form to interact with real objects. As a virus, it can control electromagnetic forces and possess systems, inanimate objects, natural elements, or living things and manipulate them to attack humanity and its enemies, with them usually being marked with its eye symbol as a sign of its control. After evolving further, X.A.N.A. learns to possess humans or manifest polymorphic specters to follow its orders, pixelizing and empowering them with its supernatural abilities. On Lyoko, it virtualizes monsters to fight enemies and attack targets, and can alter the environment to its advantage. The only known physical incarnation of X.A.N.A. appeared in season 1, in the episode "Ghost Channel". It disguised itself as Jeremy and, after its disguise was exposed, it transformed into a demonic caricature of Jeremy and tried to kill the Warriors. X.A.N.A.'s voice in the episode was provided by David Gasman. As X.A.N.A.'s power grows, its capabilities with the towers become practically unlimited and its goals develop further. It steals the Keys to Lyoko from Aelita to escape the Supercomputer and access the world network. Upon its escape, X.A.N.A. becomes more ruthless and aggressive, attempting to destroy Lyoko to render the team powerless against it. It succeeds in this goal at the end of the third season, though Lyoko is recreated afterwards. After this, it possesses William to become its minion and targets Franz Hopper, the biggest threat to it and the reason why the group keeps surviving. At the same time, the heroes discover that X.A.N.A. has infected hundreds of supercomputers in the network to build weapons and technology to conquer the real world. Near the end of the series, the group manages to free William and, with Franz Hopper's sacrifice in the final battle, destroyed X.A.N.A. with Jeremy's multi-agent program.

Recurring characters

Elisabeth "Sissi" Delmas

Voiced by: Carole Baillien (French); Christine Flowers and Jodi Forrest (English)

The principal's daughter and a Kadic student, who has had a crush on Ulrich since before attending Kadic. Though mean, spoiled, and conceited, she is also beautiful and popular. Sissi and Odd often make fun of each other, with Odd making clever comebacks whenever Sissi says something rude or whenever they need her to go away. After Aelita is first materialized, she often does the same. Sissi tends to make fun of and openly insult Yumi in particular, mostly due to Ulrich liking Yumi more than her. Sissi is often followed by Herb and Nicolas, whom she often shows resentment towards, but uses to her advantage. She was initially part of the gang and knew about Lyoko; however, after she broke her oath to keep the Supercomputer a secret, she was kicked out of the group and her memories of Lyoko were erased. She becomes friends with the Lyoko Warriors at the end of the series. Sissi shows a dislike for being called by her full name, Elisabeth.

Herb Pichon

Voiced by: Bruno Mullenaerts (French); David Gasman (English)

An eighth-grader at Kadic and a classmate of the Lyoko Warriors. He is the second-in-command of Sissi's gang, and, due to being the most intelligent member of the group, sometimes the boss in times of emergency. Herb is also shown to be in love with Sissi, although he does not tell her because of her crushes on various boys, most notably Ulrich. He is the second-best student in his class after Jeremy and the two often compete with each other, but Herb is almost always the loser. Herb is also shown to be easily scared and quick to run away when trouble happens.

Nicolas Poliakoff

Voiced by: Carole Baillien (French); Matthew Géczy (English)

An eighth-grader at Kadic and the third member of Sissi's gang. He usually does not show much intelligence and tends to act only when Sissi gives him orders. Nicolas also has been shown to have a crush on Aelita, although he never acts on it. He can play the drums and was in the Pop Rock Progressives, a band started by Odd. He is generally more tolerant of and less rude toward the Lyoko Warriors than Herb and Sissi are. Some episodes show his intelligence, as he wrote a script for a performance of Romeo and Juliet. Nicolas is also shown to be as easily frightened as Herb is.

Supporting characters

Waldo Franz Schaeffer

Voiced by: Mathieu Moreau (French); Paul Bandey (season 2), Alan Wenger (season 4) (English)

More commonly known as Franz Hopper, a combination of his middle name and the maiden name of his wife, he is the creator of Lyoko and X.A.N.A. and was involved in the creation of Project Carthage. After his wife Anthea was kidnapped by men in black suits, he was forced to flee with his daughter Aelita. They came to live at a house called the Hermitage, located in a park near Kadic Academy and the abandoned factory. While working as a science teacher at the school, he constructed the Supercomputer in the factory and programmed X.A.N.A. and the virtual world of Lyoko within it. When the men in black suits tracked him down again, he took Aelita to the factory and virtualized her into Lyoko alongside him, where he believed they would be safe. However, X.A.N.A. refused to obey its creator's orders or live in peace alongside them, and Franz was forced to shut the Supercomputer down until it was eventually discovered by Jeremy nearly ten years later. In one of the final episodes of the show, he sacrifices himself to allow Jeremy to finally destroy X.A.N.A.

Yolanda Perraudin

Voiced by: Alexandra Correa (French); Jodi Forrest (English)

The school nurse who often treats the students' injuries from any incidents. In "X.A.N.A.'s Kiss," Jim was kissed by a Polymorphic Specter disguised as her and attempted to ask her out on a date, much to her confusion.

Samantha "Sam" Knight

Voiced by: Jodi Forrest (English)

One of Odd's ex-girlfriends, who appears in two episodes. She first appears in "Rock Bottom?" where Odd hires her as a DJ at Yumi's party, only for X.A.N.A. to cause an earthquake to sink the school. She appears again in "Final Round", where she and Odd enter a skating competition.

Johnny Cleary

Development

Origins

Code Lyoko originates from the film short Les enfants font leur cinéma ("The children make their movies"), directed by Thomas Romain and produced by a group of students from Parisian visual arts school Gobelins School of the Image. Romain worked with Tania Palumbo, Stanislas Brunet, and Jerome Cottray to create the film, which was screened at the 2000 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. French animation company Antefilms took interest in the film due to its atmosphere and offered Romain and Palumbo a contract to turn it into a series. This led to the development of the pilot, Garage Kids.

Garage Kids was produced in 2001 by Antefilms. The project was created by Palumbo, Romain, and Carlo de Boutiny and developed by Anne de Galard. Its producers were Eric Garnet, Nicolas Atlan, Benoît di Sabatino, and Christophe di Sabatino.

Similar to its succeeding show Code Lyoko, Garage Kids was originally envisioned as a 26-episode miniseries detailing the lives of four French boarding school students who discover the secret of the virtual world of Xanadu; created by a research group headed by a character known as the "Professor". The pilot featured both traditional animation and CGI. The Matrix had "enormous influence" on the pilot according to Romain, citing the concept of a machine allowing the characters to dive in a virtual world, an operator who supervises the trip and the correlation between the action in the real world and the virtual world. Anime also served as inspiration, specifically Serial Experiments Lain for its "worrying digital dimension" and Neon Genesis Evangelion for its dangerous entities to fight. While similarities to Tron have been noted, Romain admitted to not having seen the film yet when the series was being developed.

When the concept on the virtual world was added, Antefilms suggested animating it with CGI to help make the series unique, promote a video game theme and make the separation between the virtual and real worlds clearer. While incorporating it, Palumbo and Romain wanted to avoid making the series "too playful and superficial" and sought to "get around the censoring done by TV channels that tend to soften youth programs" by writing episodes "with tension, suspense, even tragic scenes. Things that are hard to imagine seeing in a cartoon series for kids."

A team of artists were recruited in order to give the backgrounds of the real world a realistic appearance. The factory and boarding schools specifically were modelled after locations in France. The factory was based on a Renault production plant in Boulogne-Billancourt (Île Seguin), which has since been demolished. The school, Kadic Academy, is based on Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, which Romain had attended. Palumbo and Romain were adamant on keeping the locales based on "the France we knew", as they wanted to avoid what they perceived as "fantastical" or "Americanized" locations other French cartoons used at the time.

Writing

The writing process for Code Lyoko usually began with the head writer asking the other writers for story pitches. If they liked an idea, it next had to receive approval from the show's director, producers and broadcasters before it could be turned into a 4-page synopsis. After going through the approval process again, it was then expanded into a script and approved one last time to be sent off for production. Writing an episode typically lasted 2–3 weeks, though some took longer if higher-ups were unhappy with the story or it ran into issues. Sophie Decroisette, head writer of Code Lyoko's first three seasons, described Image Problem as "very difficult to write" after its original writer left the show following the synopsis phase, requiring another writer to step in and finish it. The writing team was also mandated by production to approve 4 scripts per month.

Following the success of the first season, the show was able to have more continuous storylines. Decroisette and show director Jérôme Mouscadet wrote the series' backstory during the break between season 1 and 2. Before Romain left the project, the idea of Lyoko being created by a team of researchers had changed to just one: Franz Hopper. However his motivations and identity were never established. Decroisette revealed during production of season 4 that the full backstory would not be told in the show, as she considered it "very complicated... dense and [not] really important to the story."

The show's international success in the United States also affected production. Romance elements were ultimately reduced after season 2 to appease American audiences. Aside from this, Decroisette otherwise noted that she "never felt censored" while working on the series, apart from a self-imposed restriction to write stories appropriate for children. Bruno Regeste became head writer for Code Lyoko's final season after Decroisette stepped down while she was pregnant with her second child, though she continued writing scripts and closely monitored episodes involving Replikas.

Animation

The series' traditional animation was handled overseas by Animation Services Hong Kong Limited, Fantasia Animation and Welkin Animation also worked on the show's first two seasons. Starting around the third season, a team dedicated to Code Lyoko was formed at Hong Kong Limited's studio, who were managed on-site by two members from Antefilms' Paris office. This change stemmed from Mouscadet's desire for a more consistent animation quality, which he described trying to manage it prior to that point as "a little bit like steering an ocean liner with binoculars". The 3D segments were animated in-house by Antefilm's CGI team at their Angoulême office.

Telecast and home media

The show first premiered on France 3 on 3 September 2003 and ended on 10 November 2007 in France and on Cartoon Network in the U.S. on 19 April 2004. The second season started on 19 September 2005. The two-part X.A.N.A. Awakens prequel aired on 2–3 October 2006, and the third season started a day later on 4 October 2006. The fourth and final season began on 18 May 2007. The final episode aired on Cartoon Network was "Cousins Once Removed", and the remaining seven episodes were released online on Cartoon Network Video. During its run, it was simultaneously both part of its afterschool weekday action animation light-toned programming block, Miguzi from 2004 until 2007 when it was carried over into its rebranded Master Control block. It was also a standalone show on its primetime slot and continued until 2008. The show also aired on Kabillion from 2007 to 2015.

The show also aired in Latin America and Japan on Jetix. In Italy, the show aired on Disney Channel, Rai 2, RaiSat Smash, Rai Gulp and was published on DVD by Delta Pictures under the label 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. In Canada, the show aired on Radio-Canada.

In January 2011, all four seasons of Code Lyoko were released on iTunes in the U.S. and France by MoonScoop Holdings, although as of May 2019, only seasons 1 and 2 are available and other seasons have been removed. In October 2011, all four seasons were released on Amazon Instant Streaming and on DVD in the U.S., however, these DVDs are now out of print.

All four seasons were made available on Netflix on 6 August 2012, but were removed. The show was eventually returned to Netflix on 1 October 2020 after being taken down following MoonScoop's bankruptcy. Since 2015, all of the English-dubbed episodes (including the prequel X.A.N.A. Awakens) are viewable on YouTube. Since 2019, an upscaled HD version of the series is also available on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

Reception

Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the show 4/5 stars, writing: "Kids will like the battles in Lyoko -- each plays out much like a video game", and added: "Strategy and teamwork are themes throughout the series." In a 2020 retrospective of the show for Comic Book Resources, Noah Dominguez wrote: "Whether you're a returning traveler or are only visiting Lyoko for the first time, Code Lyoko still holds up as a unique, easily-accessible gem of the 2000s".

Code Lyoko was voted as the best show by Canal J viewers in France. The series has achieved international fame as well, becoming the #2 show on Cartoon Network's Miguzi block upon its premiere in the United States. It was the block's most popular series in 2005 and Cartoon Network's #3 best performing show overall in 2006. Kabillion had it as #4 in monthly average views in 2010. The show has reached success in Spain as one of Clan TVE's highest-rated shows, on Italy's Rai2 network, and in Finland and the United Kingdom as well. The show also won France's Prix de l'Export 2006 Award for Animation in December 2006.

Merchandise

Several Code Lyoko products have been released, including DVDs, a series of cine-manga by Tokyopop, a series of four novels by Italian publisher Atlantyca Entertainment, apparel, and other accessories. In 2006, Marvel Toys released a line of Code Lyoko toys and action figures.

When the show was about to come to an end in 2007, The Game Factory released three video games based on the show: Code Lyoko and Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A. for the Nintendo DS, and Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity for the Wii, PSP, and PlayStation 2. The games were met with mixed to positive reviews from critics despite some criticisms of gameplay. There have been other games released through various mediums, one being Facebook.

A series of Clan TVE festivals in Spain included live stage shows based on Code Lyoko among other things. A game show known as Code Lyoko Challenge was planned to be released in late 2012, but fell through.

Novels

A series of four chapter books was released by Atlantyca Entertainment and distributed in Italy and other countries. The novels delve deeper into the unanswered questions of the series. Taking place after the end of the series, X.A.N.A. has miraculously survived and returns though weakened and initially missing its memories. X.A.N.A. possesses Eva Skinner, an American girl, and travels to France in order to infiltrate the gang and kill them off. Unaware of their enemy's presence, the group works to find clues about Aelita's past, left by her father Franz Hopper, and confirm whether or not her mother is still alive somewhere, but at the same time, a terrorist group, the Green Phoenix, has become interested in the Supercomputer and intend to use both it and the virtual world of Lyoko for evil purposes.

It was confirmed that the series will never be released officially in English, nor the final two books released in French. However, sometime later, a fan community came together and sought to not only finish the series but translate it into more languages, including English. They have since completed their work and made it available for free download in September 2014.