Code Lyoko/YMMV
- Alternative Character Interpretation: XANA, because little is actually established about him/her/it, can be translated anywhere from misunderstood, going for some vague goal in its programming, bugged, to a complete monster.
- And the Fandom Rejoiced: MoonScoop announced that they are making a 5th season by the name of Code Lyoko: Evolution due out in 2012. To which the majority of Code Lyoko fans were happy about.
- Breakout Character; Aelita, big time. Her general growth from "AI in Lyoko" in Season 1 to "fish out of water" in Season 2 and finally into the fully aware girl she is in Seasons 3 and 4 really endeared a ton of viewers. Her disposition, going from "sugary sweet" to "sugar with spice" also makes her insanely likable while her DJ-ing arc (which culminates in Music to Soothe the Savage Beast and her first - and only - genuine Ms. Fanservice scene) proves she can also be really cool.
- Non Sequitur Scene: In "Code Earth", it's revealed that Odd made a music video named "Break Break Break Dance", which is never mentioned or seen again, unless you consider a brief exchange between him and Ulrich right after the song is interrupted.
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Ulrich: You made a video? |
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- Complete Monster: XANA is a rogue multi-agent program living on the virtual world Lyoko that evolved to the point of achieving sapience. Gaining a desire to rule over and/or destroy humanity, XANA tries to kill his creator, Franz Hopper, as well as his daughter Aelita. Trapped inside the supercomputer for a decade, once revived, XANA regularly launches many vicious schemes upon the real world, not caring about the sheer amounts of potential casualties that would result from the attacks. XANA shifts strategies to absorbing Aelita's memory to gain the power to leave the supercomputer and into the network, the success of which nearly killing Aelita in the process. Using the internet to access supercomputers across the world, XANA gradually builds a robot army to rule over humanity. In the mean time, XANA tries and almost succeeds in destroying Lyoko, taking William as his personal avatar and slave to his will. When Lyoko is revived, XANA decides to lure out and kill Franz Hopper by using Aelita as bait and plans on keeping the latter as his eternal prisoner. In the one episode where he appears before the heroes, XANA shows sadistic enjoyment in trying to kill them all.
- Copy Cat Sue: The fanfiction. Good luck trying to find a story without an OC going/knowing about Lyoko or some event that leads Yumi and Ulrich to confess their love for the other.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: The theme song, despite having cheesy lyrics, is extremely catchy.
- Worth noting is that it's a lot less cheesy in French as opposed to English. Both versions are total Ear Worms, though.
- Die for Our Ship
- Ear Worm: The theme song.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: Clone William is very popular with the fans.
- Foe Yay: Odd×Sissi
- Freud Was Right: Jérémie's Multi-Agent Program (don't ask).
- Goddamned Bats: Frelions/Hornets
- Growing the Beard: The first season was, for the most part, a Strictly Formula Monster of the Week-type show, with the exception of the two-part finale. Come season 2, the show became much more plot-focused (whilst still having some filler episodes), there were various changes to the status quo and there was a lot more Character Development.
- Funny Moments
- The aformentioned Non Sequitur Scene. BREAK BREAK BREAK DANCE! HERE WE GOOOOOO!
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In "Code:Earth", Yumi is trying to get her parents to agree to letting Aelita stay at their house. When they ask what her parents do, Yumi makes up on the spot that they 'work with computers'. And who should have created the supercomputer other than Aelita's father, Franz Hopper!
- Hollywood Pudgy: In "Tip-Top Shape", Sissi is told by the nurse that she's 5 pounds overweight, but she's just as skinny as always. (The scale read 110.7 lb [50 kg]. If she was 5 pounds overweight she'd have to be 4'7" [137 cm].) Lampshaded by Aelita.
- Ho Yay: Some of the more notable examples include:
- "Triple Trouble"—After Jérémie tells Odd that he's developed a new power for him on Lyoko, Odd says, "You're the best, Einstein! If you were a girl, I'd propose to you immediately!"
- "Replika"—Nicolas initially asks Aelita if she'd like to go on a "fantastic and breathtaking experience in the moonlight". She ends up pulling out, so instead Nicolas ends up spending the night with... Hervé.
- Idiot Plot: The show stresses The Masquerade, yet the gang has openly mentioned Lyoko and XANA within crowded areas talking louder than anyone else as well as in front of at least one person not privy to the secret—and somehow this generally doesn't expose them all. This has actually happened at least 20 times within the first two seasons alone. Mitigated, of course, by the Reset Button—but the point still stands, as they're way too much relying on it to cover their indiscretions. They also often pass it off as dicussing some movie or video game.
- Jerkass Woobie: Sissi on several occasions, particularly during XANA attacks and especially after the prequel reveals that a stupid misunderstanding and Ulrich's hurt feelings contributed to Sissi being a Jerkass to begin with; otherwise, she's kind of nice.
- Magnificent Bastard: XANA, big time. Despite being 1) A never seen character and 2) The only villain in the whole show, he succeed in both inverting Villain Decay, pulling out Xanatos and Batman Gambits and ending a season with The Bad Guy Wins twice.
- Memetic Badass: Franz Hopper. According to the Lyoko Freak forums, any time Franz Hopper removes his glasses the world is split in half.
- Memetic Sex God: Two; William Dunbar and background character Thomas Jolivet. Also indigenous to Lyoko Freak.
- Nightmare Fuel: Some of XANA's attacks do border on this, especially if it's a widespread offensive. Also, a lot of the psychotic expressions XANA-fied William makes.
- Jérémie scores one with the "Marabounta". The heroes were definitively squicked—especially when it ate Yumi.
- "Attack of the Zombies"
- This lovely shot of a XANA-possessed Aelita.
- Of course, in animation there's a lot of Art Evolution between pilot episodes and the resulting series themselves, but Garage Kids (in certain scenes) combines Off-Model and Uncanny Valley and turns them Up to Eleven. To clarify: Ulrich's avatar has eyes that seem like they came from the first Crash Bandicoot. But still, Tropes Are Not Bad (see What Could Have Been in the Trivia tab).
- "Killer Music" borders on the High Octane variety. Imagine an MP3 becoming a successful hit. Now imagine it being a simple, looped sentence (I've seen the Italian version and it was like, "Uh, hah, you will never win") creepily reminiscent of synthethizeritis. Now picture it putting each of its listeners in a comatose state. It's especially terrifying when Odd falls victim to it, as he's stuck with a huge grin on his face, thus looking like he'd been murdered by The Joker.
- The ending of "Ghost Channel". "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
- From the novel series: XANA as Eva has determined the fastest way to get a necessary item is to maim whoever has it. At one point, before getting on the airplane to France, she is seen with luggage, new clothing, and a computer, with no indication as to where she got any of it, except that the T-shirt is stained.
- Who else shat bricks when we saw XANA's disguise of Jérémie breaking down from "Ghost Channel".
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: During the first season, before the show completely found it's groove, the heroes could suffer of this. Example: In one episode, Sissi tricks Ulrich by writing a note pretending to be Yumi, and that's considered terrible. In a different episode, Ulrich and the gang trick Hervé by writing a note pretending to be Sissi, and that's considered perfectly OK!
- One episode put it even further by centering morality around Yumi alone: in this episode, Odd inadvertently publish a embarrassing photo of Yumi in Kadic's newspaper, understandly making her pissed off. Scared of Yumi's wrath, Odd convinces Ulrich to take the blame for him without telling what the blame is. After Ulrich learned it and ended up with Yumi angry at him, he attempts to convince Odd to tell the truth to her, until Yumi assumes he did it because of their Unresolved Sexual Tension and forgives him, causing him to keep the silence after all. In the end, Odd finally tells the truth to Yumi, and how does she react ? By being pissed off again for them "tricking her" and taking her revenge on both Ulrich and Odd by publishing a compromising photo of them in the newspaper. Yeah, because Ulrich was so nasty by taking wrongly all the blame for the sole sake of helping his bestfriend...
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Starting around mid-season 1, Sissi and Jim got much more noble moments and even some awesome ones, and they now mostly very well-liked. To a lesser extent, William was also rescued from the heap when he become The Dragon to XANA, since Evil Is Cool.
- Romantic Plot Tumor: Ulrich and Yumi's Unresolved Sexual Tension got ridiculous by Season 2, and was soon toned down since Word of God is that MoonScoop had received many complaints about it.
- Seasonal Rot: Season 3 is often considered this. Among other things, it was only half as long as other seasons, Yumi's Designated Victim status became exaggerated, the tone was Darker and Edgier than even season 2 (and, by contrast, the comic relief became less funny, especially when it involved the usually-reliable Jim), and also the huge potential after the season 3 finale never came to fruition when season 4 arrived....
- Ship Mates: Most shippers that support Ulrich×Yumi also support Jérémie×Aelita, and vice versa. Those same shippers will generally ship Odd with either Sam (a one-shot girlfriend of his) or Sissi (a frequent subject of Ship Tease with him.)
- Squick: In the novel series, Odd falls for a girl named Eva. And Eva is XANA.
- Tear Jerker: Quite a few...
- One of the main ones is at the end of the penultimate episode where Franz Hopper sacrifices himself so that Jérémie will have enough power to run his multi-agent program to destroy XANA.
- Also, when William finally gets de-virtualised, you can pretty much expect the other Lyoko Warriors to tell him off about how underestimating XANA got him Brainwashed and Crazy. Think again—turns out he doesn't remember anything following his first trip to Lyoko on that fateful day, and as a result, the first words he says when he emerges from the scanners come out of NOWHERE: "Was I any good?". Those four words have rarely been so gut-wrenching...And when he can't understand why the group seems to give him the cold shoulder the next episode, you can't help but feel sorry for him, really.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks: News of the new project ("Evolution") being live-action is already being met with fervent hatred in some places. Even fans who are willing to give the show a chance have expressed doubts about this change.
- Viewer Gender Confusion: Odd has often been mistaken for a female. Even more so in the french dub, due to his voice.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Mister Puck is demoted from the mysterious subject of Aelita's nightmares to a doll in her flashbacks. Perhaps the latter was his intended role all along, but the scenes in which Aelita sees related visions while awake in the episodes "New Order" and "Mister Puck" would suggest otherwise.
- The Woobie: Aelita.
