Shella's World

Code Lyoko is a French animated television series created by Thomas Romain and Tania Palumbo. The series centers on four boarding school students Jeremie, Ulrich, Yumi, andOdd who travel to the virtual world of Lyoko to fight against an evil and sinister sentient artificial intelligence/multi-agent computer program called XANA with a virtual humanoid being named Aelita. The series features both two-dimensional animation and CGI.

The series began its initial ninety-five episode run on 3 September 2003 on France'sFrance 3, and ended its run on 10 November 2007. In the United States, the show was first broadcast on 19 April 2004 on Turner and Time Warner's Cartoon Network. On 31 May 2011, production company MoonScoop revealed on Facebook^[1] that the show is returning with a fifth season, rebranded as Code Lyoko Evolution, that is set to air in late 2012. The new season will be twenty-six episodes long and contain a mixture of live-action for scenes on Earth and contuine to be CGI for Lyoko scenes.^[2][3]

Code Lyoko has spawned an array of related merchandise, including three video games, atie-in book series, figurines, a new MMORPG in development, a Facebook social game due in spring 2012, a few online flash games, and a merchandise store in CafePress. The show achieved ratings success in multiple countries.^[2]

Code Lyoko originates from the film short Les enfants font leur cinéma (The children make their movies), directed by Thomas Romainand produced by a group of students from Parisian visual arts school Gobelins School of the Image.^[4] 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.^[5] French animation company Antefilms offered Romain and Palumbo a contract as a result of the film. This led to the development of the pilot, Garage Kids.^[4]

Garage Kids was first released in 2001. 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. The project was produced by Antefilms.

Similar to its succeeding show Code Lyoko, Garage Kids was originally intended to be a 26-episode miniseries detailing the lives of four French boarding school students who have discovered the secret of the virtual world of Xanadu, created by a research group headed by the Professor. The Professor plunged into madness, and the resulting sinisterly evil disturbances deep within Xanadu threaten the real world. The pilot featured both 2D hand-drawn animation on Earth, and 3D computer animation in Xanadu.^[6]

Garage Kids eventually was perfected and evolved into Code Lyoko, which began broadcast in 2003. Romain, however, left the show to work on the Japanese anime series Oban Star Racers.

Code Lyoko is about a group of four boarding school students enrolled at Kadic Junior High School: Jeremie Belpois, Odd Della Robbia,Ulrich Stern, and Yumi Ishiyama. The students travel to the virtual world of Lyoko — which is found in an extremely powerful and scientifically complex supercomputer housed in the basement of an abandoned factory near the school — to fight against a sentient, thinking, sinister and deadly multi-agent system ( or artificial intelligence) called XANA and prevent it from taking over the real world and all of humanity. In the first season, they also relentlessly tried to bring a virtual humanoid being trapped on Lyoko, Aelita Schaeffer to Earth via a process known as materialization.

An evil and sinister sentient and autonomous, living and feeling, thinking and perceiving artificial intelligence/multi-agent program called X.A.N.A., is obsessed with world domination and destruction. To do this, he first must escape a highly complex and powerful supercomputer that imprisoned him. X.A.N.A. is able to attack the real world by activating towers on a virtual world called Lyoko, which act as links to the real world. When these towers are activated, X.A.N.A. is able to seize control of other computers and electrical systems as well as occasionally possessing organic life-forms or generating copies of them. In order to end an attack, Aelita must get to the activated tower(s) out of Lyoko's five sectors to deactivate them, thus neutralizing the attack on the real world.

Once the danger is averted, the Lyoko Warriors 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 many clashes of personality at the same time. Once back in time, they can use their knowledge of the future to alter events in their favor. This usually entails taking steps to keep one of X.A.N.A.'s attacks from taking place, though they do use the knowledge to prevent other unfavorable events that may not be related to X.A.N.A. As a downside, returning to the past adds a qubit to the supercomputer, greatly strengthening and doubling its power tenfold and therefore X.A.N.A.'s with each use (in the first two seasons only, as X.A.N.A.'s connection to the supercomputer is lost by the start of the third season).

In the two-part prequel, twelve-year old Jeremie Belpois discovers an old abandoned factory containing a complex and powerful supercomputer. He reboots it, and learns that it contains a virtual world called Lyoko and a virtual humanoid being named Aelita, who does not remember her name and is thus called "Maya". Strange and destructively powerful attacks begin to occur in the real world as a result of reactivating the supercomputer. Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, and Yumi Ishiyama become involved in these attacks, and Jeremie has no choice but to share his secret with them. The three are sent into Lyoko using three scanners to stop the deadly virtual force attacking their world. Once the attacks are stopped, the group discovers that all of the destructive havoc caused is all X.A.N.A.'s doing, an evil and powerful sentient and autonomous, thinking and feeling artificial intelligence, which wants to dominate the real world. "Maya" learns that her actual name is Aelita when she is deactivating the tower, thus stopping and neutralizing X.A.N.A.'s first attack.

In "X.A.N.A. Awakens, Part 2" Jeremy discovers a return-to-the-past function in the supercomputer, but nobody knows who or what created the supercomputer, Lyoko, Aelita, or the evil and sentient artificial intelligence, X.A.N.A. and why. Joined by his new friends Ulrich Stern, Odd Della Robbia and Yumi Ishiyama, Jeremy intends to materialize Aelita into the real world and the three become the Lyoko warriors, promising to the keep the virtual secret until X.A.N.A. is utterly obliterated.

The first season (consisting of twenty-six episodes) of the show has little plot development. The creators of the show originally wanted to make sure anyone could jump into the show and not get lost. The only major plot developments are made in the two-part finale. 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 subplots 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 X.A.N.A.'s attack. This is the only season when X.A.N.A. attacks and confronts the Lyoko Warriors directly. In Episode 24 Ghost Channel, X.A.N.A. reveals that he was the duplicate Jeremie, taking on a creepy male voice that specters did not talk in. Throughout episodes, Jeremie works on a program to materialize Aelita into the real world in order to shut down the supercomputer safely. He eventually completes the program and runs it in the two-part finale, but X.A.N.A. takes measures to keep Aelita linked to the supercomputer, preventing the group from shutting it down without killing her in the process, leaving a cliffhanger opening for the second season.

The second season (consisting of twenty-six episodes; Episodes 27-52), in contrast to the first, is much more plot-focused, though a decent portion of episodes are still filler. Animation has changed (due to switching production companies) and sectors have been redesigned and are much brighter and Jim and Sissi's personalities have changed significantly, though some traces of their old personalities exist in some form. In the first episode of the second season, Aelita enrolls at Kadic under the name of Aelita Stones. She poses as a cousin of Odd, using a forged birth certificate created by Jeremie, therefore allowing her to live on Earth. Jeremie's new super scan program also means that Aelita doesn't need to stay on Lyoko to check for XANA's activity; however, due to her links to the supercomputer, Aelita will die if she runs out of Life Points on Lyoko and can only be devirtualized through one of the towers. 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 quite a romantic interest in Yumi and, as a result, makes Ulrich jealous.

Each member of the group now has vehicles to quickly transport them in Lyoko: Odd receives a hover skateboard called an "Overboard," Ulrich receives a one-wheeled motorcycle called an "Overbike," and Yumi receives 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 X.A.N.A.'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, X.A.N.A. begins sending the jellyfish-like monster called the Scyphozoa after Aelita to steal her memories that he can use as "keys" and escape the supercomputer in order take over all of humankind. X.A.N.A. also has created four new monsters (including the Scyphozoa) that are stronger and much more powerful than previous monsters. The operations of the supercomputer are also somewhat demystified. Return trips are fewer (though still common) now, because it makes X.A.N.A. stronger and more powerful. Throughout the season, X.A.N.A.'s true purpose is revealed slowly, as are the origins of the supercomputer, Lyoko, and Aelita herself. In the end, despite the group's best efforts, Aelita's memories are stolen, apparently killing her; but Franz Hopper (revealed to be Aelita's father) revives her and restores her memory. However, X.A.N.A. manages to escape the supercomputer, and the group, though unsure of how to do so, vows to continue fighting him.

In the third season (which consists of thirteen episodes; Episodes 53-65), X.A.N.A. has been strangely quiet in both the real world and Lyoko, having done nothing during the group's three-month 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. Jeremy has developed a new scanning program capable of tracking X.A.N.A., which reveals that X.A.N.A. appears to be residing in the United States, but the team lacks the means to strike against X.A.N.A. Jeremy's current goal at the moment is to find a way to virtualize the four Lyoko Warriors directly into the Internet.

Because Aelita had her human memories returned by her father, Franz Hopper, she can be devirtualized normally. She even has a new ability to defend herself within Lyoko —deep pink electric energy orbs called energy fields. Also, Yumi has decided having a strictlyplatonic relationship with Ulrich would change her life, preferring to stay as just good friends.

In Carthage, the group finds the very Heart/Core of Lyoko itself, which X.A.N.A. wants destroyed. Being free of the supercomputer, X.A.N.A.'s attacks are far much stronger and more powerful. Tower activation is still required to initiate them, but X.A.N.A. 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, X.A.N.A. has turned his sights to Lyoko's four main sectors, hoping to remove their ability to access Carthage by deleting the sectors, one by one, they use to get there. By using the Scyphozoa to possess Aelita, X.A.N.A. can use her to enter the "Code: X.A.N.A." in a way tower. This gives X.A.N.A. full access to the sector, after which he can delete it entirely. Despite their best efforts, X.A.N.A. eventually succeeds in deleting all four sectors. Luckily, Jeremy finds a way to access Carthage directly.

Seeing that their numbers aren't enough against XANA's increasing strength and power, the group decides to add William Dunbar to the team to balance things out. However, a chain of events lead to only Aelita and William being able to make it to his first trip to Lyoko. Once they arrive, the two are separated, and X.A.N.A. uses the Scyphozoa to possess William. Using William, X.A.N.A. is easily able to overpower the other Lyoko warriors and destroy Lyoko's core. The act renders the supercomputer utterly useless. Within the empty supercomputer, William is transformed into a darker version of himself, now possessed by X.A.N.A. to an even greater degree. Afterwards, Jeremy gets a coded message from the internet from none other than Franz Hopper, who has somehow survived the destruction of Lyoko.

In the fourth season, (consisting of thirty episodes-Episodes 66-95) the virtual world Lyoko is successfully reborn and recreated, allowing the group to continue tracking X.A.N.A. Traveling into the digital sea in Jeremie's latest creation, a submersible ship called the Skidbladnir, the group finds a number of "Replikas", single-sector recreations of the virtual world. Each of these 'Replikas' are controlled by another supercomputer located in different continents of the world, each controlled by the evil artificial intelligence X.A.N.A. To stop X.A.N.A. once and for all, Jeremie devises a way to materialize his four friends to the real world locations of these supercomputers, with their Lyoko weapons, abilities and powers perfectly intact. As a result of this effort, the group attempts to destroy supercomputers controlling these new virtual worlds one by one.

In the final few episodes of the season, the creation of a gigantic volcanic-like monster known as the Kolossus causes the realization that another solution will need to be devised to stop the sinister artificial intelligence. To this end, Jeremy works to complete a multi-agent program to stop X.A.N.A. from taking over the world even further, as well as to free the captured human William from X.A.N.A.'s clutches. . In the fourth season finale,"Fight to the Finish," the combined efforts of Jeremy and Franz Hopper successfully destroy X.A.N.A. completely, with the price of Franz Hopper's very life to give the multi-agent system enough energy and power to do so. In the epilogue,"Echoes," after going through all of their fond memories of Lyoko, Aelita and the rest of the group reluctantly shut down the supercomputer, closing the long book on their dangerous adventures...for now.

In addition to plot changes, this is the first season in which the character's outfits are significantly altered, in both the physical and virtual worlds.^[7][8] [9]

Page: Code Lyoko Evolution

Episode Guide: List of Code Lyoko Evolution episodes

This season, (consits of twenty-six episodes; Episodes 96-135) officially identified as Code Lyoko Evolution, is a new stage of the series and is set to be aired in late 2012. The series will be filmed in live-action animated in France for scenes on Earth, but the Lyoko scenes will still be computer-animated like the four previous seasons.^[2] The official logo for Code Lyoko: Evolution was revealed on the website on the 3rd February 2012.^[10] On February 29, it was announced that the new season will be co-produced by Angoulême-based production company, Norimage. The season is estimated to have a budget of €5,600,000.^[11]

In January 2012, Canal J announced they were starting a casting call for Code Lyoko: Evolution running until the end of March. Applicants had to be over 14 years old, and speak fluent French. Filming took place from June to August 2012 in Angoulême. When viewing the Code Lyoko website translated from French, it says that casting is complete. However, the English page says that casting is still in progress. An English version will be dubbed, but there is still no channel information. On June 2012, a teaser showing the actors after casting was released by MoonScoop, although most of the actors faces are obscured by their animated counterparts.^[12]On July 21, 2012, it was revealed that actress Leonie Berthonnaud would be portraying Aelita Hopper-Schaeffer.^[13]

The series mainly focuses on Aelita Schaeffer (Stones), Jeremy Belpois, Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, and the primary antagonist XANA, an artificial intelligence. Although originally un-explained, the characters' origins, including how they met, were explained in a two part episode that served as a prequel to weenseason three, "XANA Awakens". During this episode, it is revealed that Jeremy discovered Aelita trapped in a virtual world while searching for parts in an abandoned factory, for which her rescue serves as the main story arc for the first season.

There are characters who the series does not entirely focus on, but plays a big role in the show nonetheless. Such examples are Elizabeth "Sissi" Delmas, a fellow student who attempts to ruin the group, William Dunbar, a boy who wants to get closer to Yumi, Jim Morales, the physical education teacher, who always speculates on what the group is doing, and Herb Pichon and Nicholas Poliakoff, Sissi's close friends.

Also, some characters are developed to contribute to the storyline for only one episode. Examples include Taelia, a girl who looked like Aelita that moved to Kadic; Patrick Belpois, Jeremie's cousin; there are many more.

There are many types of monsters in Lyoko. XANA creates them in order to keep the towers it activates safe and battle the group. 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 traveling 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 twelve types of monsters: Krabe, Blok, Kankrelat, Megatank, Hornet, Creeper, Kolossus, Kongre, Sharks, Manta,Tarantula and Scyphozoa. Each Lyoko warrior has 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 do not fall into the same category as XANA's monsters. One is a monster Jeremie produced, called the Marabounta, which only appeared in episode thirty-six. There is also an entity known as the Transport Orb. It is 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 or Nav Skids.

Lyoko (/liːˈoʊkoʊ/lee-oh-koh) is the virtual world contained within the supercomputer. It is composed of five different regions or sectors, each one representing a different landscape and environment. The first four being the Forest, Desert, Ice/Polar/Glacier, and Mountains, superficially resembling various real-world landscapes, climate, and ecosystems. The fifth sector, Carthage, serves as the central hub of Lyoko; it contains all of Lyoko's data, and X.A.N.A.'s as well. It also contains the Core/Heart of Lyoko itself, the code which maintains and supports the whole virtual world; and the hangar for the group's virtual submersible ship, the Skidbladnir. The first four sectors are arranged by four points leading to the center, around the fifth sector, a ball like figure. All five sectors are eventually destroyed by the end of the third season; by destroying the Core of Lyoko in the third season finale, X.A.N.A. made it so that the quintet would no longer pose a threat to him and his evil schemes to rule the real world. In the fourth season, all five sectors are eventually recreated by Jeremy and Aelita due to a recreation, restoration program given to them by Franz Hopper.

The Digital Sea (or Digital Void) is a liquid sea and ocean that resides below all of the four main sectors and is how the Lyoko program portrays the supercomputer's DOS or DOS's quantum computer equivalent. When something falls into the Digital Sea, a beautiful white column of light emanates from it; this represents the deletion it causes. It is the most forbidden place on Lyoko due to the permanent deletion, as well as eternal virtualization on Lyoko. Only two people have actually fallen in it: Yumi, who was brought back by a materialization program originally made for Aelita, who was eventually brought back by her father. X.A.N.A. intended to constantly throw Aelita into the digital sea in order to lure Franz Hopper out of hiding so that he could destroy him once and for all.

Lyoko is hosted on a supercomputer that is located in the abandoned factory; after destroying the original Lyoko, X.A.N.A.'s plan was to host more Lyokos on different supercomputers so he could launch attacks on the real world, much like he could on the original Lyoko. A Replica is a complete replica of one sector of Lyoko, complete with its own set of towers. The group attempted to rid the Network of all of the hundreds of existing Replicas, as doing so greatly weakened X.A.N.A., but there were too many to destroy one-by-one. Eventually, Jeremy's multi-agent program possessed enough energy and power to wipe them all out entirely, along with X.A.N.A. himself.

The show is set in France (most likely a suburb of Paris), which can be seen in various scenes through the series. The episode "Satellite", for instance, shows a military satellite zooming in on France to target the junior high school. Despite this, the English dub of the series occasionally confuses this fact. For example, in the episode "Attack of the Zombies", Milly Solovieff 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 equivalents (Washington St. and Franklin Ave., for example), further confusing this fact. In episode 84, the coordinates of Jeremie are those of a nuclear power plant in France.

The factory and boarding school are based on real locations in France. The factory was based on a Renault production plant inBoulogne-Billancourt, but has since been demolished.^[14] The school, Kadic Academy, is based on Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux.^[15]

Many scenes in the program are reused, particularly transitional scenes. 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.

Code Lyoko was voted as the best show by Canal J viewers in France,^[16] but it has achieved international fame as well: The show has been rated as one of the best shows on Cartoon Network and Kabillion in the US, with Cartoon Network having it rated as the #3 best performing show in 2006 and Kabillion having 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 also received success in Finland and the United Kingdom.^[2] The show also won France's Prix de l'Export 2006 Award for Animation in December 2006.^[17]

Several Code Lyoko products have been or are being planned for release, including DVDs, a series of cine-manga by Tokyopop, a series of four novels by Italian publisher Atlantyca, apparel and other accessories. In 2006, Marvel Toys released a line of Code Lyokotoys and action figures. In July 2007, Carl's Jr. had a kids' meal toy promotion for Code Lyoko, followed by a similar promotion from its sibling restaurant chain, Hardee's.

Game Factory has 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. An MMORPG by Korean company CJ Entertainment is also in development and set to be released in the summer of 2012.^[2][18][19] In November 2011, MoonScoop announced on Facebook the development of a new social game with 3DDUO. The closed beta was released on May 2012 while the game was made available all over on July 2012 on Facebook.^[2][20][21] A trailer was later released showing footage of the game and other features.^[22] On November 2011, an online store on CafePress was opened with official Code Lyoko merchandise such as clothing, bags, and drinkware.^[23]

As of January 2011, all four seasons of Code Lyoko have been released on iTunes in the US and in France by MoonScoop Holdings. As of October 2011, all four seasons have been released on Amazon Instant Streaming and via DVD in the same countries.^[24] On August 6, 2012, all four seasons were made available on Netflix DVD and Instant Watch.

A series of Clan TVE festivals in Spain included live stage shows based on Code Lyoko among other things.^[25][26] The same stage show was also shown across Madrid in May.^[2]

A game show known as Code Lyoko Challenge is due to be released in late 2012^[2]

A series of four chapter books was released and distributed in Italy and other countries. Taking place after the end of the series, X.A.N.A. miraculously survives and returns, stronger than ever. In addition to the gang's problem, it has allied with a terrorist group, the Green Phoenix, with intentions on using the supercomputer and Lyoko for more evil purposes. There are new characters as well: Eva Skinner, who joins the gang, and Grigory Nictapolus, the leader of Green Phoenix. The series has yet to be released in the U.S.