Code Lyoko

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, 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. In Season 3, X.A.N.A., no longer bound to the Supercomputer, seeks to destroy Lyoko by erasing its four surface sectors until only Sector Five remains. Initially reluctant, the Lyoko Warriors decide to invite fellow Kadic student William Dunbar as the sixth member. Shortly after being virtualized, however, he is possessed by X.A.N.A. and proceeds to destroy the Core of Lyoko, destroying the virtual world and rendering the group unable to fight X.A.N.A., endangering the real world. After what they thought was their defeat, Jeremy receives a coded message from Hopper containing knowledge necessary for rebuilding Lyoko. In Season 4, Jeremy and Aelita finish reconstructing Lyoko and construct a digital submarine known as the Skidbladnir to travel across the Digital Sea and destroy X.A.N.A.'s "Replikas," copies of Lyoko's sectors linked to X.A.N.A.-controlled supercomputers on Earth that were created for its goal of world domination. Throughout the season, X.A.N.A. uses William as a weapon to defend the Replikas and target the Lyoko Warriors. To prevent suspicion regarding William's disappearance, Jeremy manages to program a specter to take William's place at Kadic, although its seemingly unintelligent behavior confuses teachers and students alike. Near the end of the season, X.A.N.A. decides to draw energy from its Replikas to create the Kolossus, a gigantic monster which later destroys the Skidbladnir. Thanks to Jeremy's efforts, William is freed from X.A.N.A.'s control, but struggles to regain the group's trust. While Ulrich defeats the Kolossus, Hopper sacrifices himself to power Jeremy's "anti-X.A.N.A. program," which destroys X.A.N.A. forever upon activation. Shortly after, the group, albeit reluctant due to their nostalgia, decides to shut down the Supercomputer. ==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". • Aelita Schaeffer :Voiced by: Sophie Landresse (French); Barbara Weber-Scaff (English) :The sole members of the Kadic News crew, who are both are in sixth grade and share a dorm room. Tamiya is of Franco-African descent and seems to be less driven by her emotions than her friend Milly, which allows her to think more clearly in dire situations. • Hiroki Ishiyama :Voiced by: Guylaine Gibert (French); Barbara Weber-Scaff (English) :Yumi's younger brother. He is often shown pestering her about things and purposely being annoying, such as asking her to do his homework or mentioning her feelings for Ulrich. He is frequently shown playing on a handheld gaming device, and is often shown with his friend, Johnny Cleary. Hiroki has, on occasion, assisted Yumi when she needed it, although usually requires some form of bribe. • Takeho and Akiko Ishiyama :Takeho voiced by: David Gasman (English) :Akiko voiced by: Barbara Weber-Scaff (English) :Yumi and Hiroki's parents. Takeho is shown to be a fairly typical semi-strict busy father and works for a local branch of a Japanese company. Akiko is depicted as a typical non-working housewife and is generally the first one to ask Yumi if something is wrong. When they appear in an episode, it usually focuses on Yumi's family issues. :It is implied that Takeho and Akiho have a low-key fractious relationship, with semi-frequent arguments that their children sometimes overhear. This seems to contribute to Yumi's reserve, and possibly her reticence in pursuing a more serious emotional relationship with Ulrich. 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 :Voiced by: Jodi Forrest (English) :Hiroki's best friend, who is introduced in Season 3. It is revealed in "The Pretender" that he has a crush on Yumi despite their age difference; he asks Ulrich for dating advice, but Ulrich also has a crush on her. • Anthea Hopper-Schaeffer :Voiced by: Sharon Mann (English) :Aelita's mother, who was kidnapped by a group of men in black when they lived at a mountain cabin. This traumatized Aelita, who often suffers nightmares and hallucinations of the mysterious men as a pack of ravenous wolves and herself resembling her doll Mister Pück. == 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. 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. 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. This eventually turned into the Supercomputer's "Return to the Past" function. Networks were hesitant to Garage Kids due to its serial nature, as they feared it would alienate potential viewers who missed the first episodes and they wanted to rerun the series without worrying about episode order. Palumbo and production manager Anne de Galard ultimately settled on "Code Lyoko", with Lyoko originating from the Japanese word "旅行" (Ryokō) meaning "travel" to further emphasis the dive into the virtual world. 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." 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. == Episodes ==

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. == 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. 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. == See also ==