Wtf Is This???

Wtf is this???

Watching Code Lyoko is sort of surreal because of how much technology has advanced since this very technology-focused cartoon premiered in 2003.

the virtual world of Lyoko houses two artificial intelligence beings, one with fully human behaviors, and one with the capability to affect things in the real world that aren’t even mildly electronic. (episode 1, a giant teddy bear. why XANA)

Three children regularly fully digitize themselves to enter and exit Lyoko without any negative side effects to their mental or physical well being… aside from that time one of them fell into the “digital sea” and just. ceased to exist. Was there a body? nobody knows

XANA has taken control of trains, a government sattelite with a goddamn laser capable of targeting an individual person and pulverizing everything within a ten-foot radius of its target, (why does that even exist?) clouds of several different kinds of toxic gasses, a swarm of bees, the previously mentioned giant teddy bear, a living replica of one of the main characters, all with decidedly malicious intent. (plus that whole thing with William….)

But, it still seems to obey video game type logic, such as only deploying a limited number of minions, all with a clearly visible weak spot.

The heroes are always alerted of XANA’s activity, (directional vibrations on the ground in Lyoko) and always stop it, (deactivating the tower) in the same ways every time.

literal time travel, via the push of a button, voice command, automatic?? it’s really not consistent

but the gang’s computer whiz kid Jeremie’s personal setup looks like this

look at this dinosaur

and they all use freaking nokias

here we have Ulrich typing in Jeremie’s phone number, from memory, in order to alert him that an evil computer program has taken control of the electrical wiring in the school cafeteria and that they’re all trapped

There’s an episode in which nanobots cause an amnesia epidemic, (I think it’s one of my faves so far) and the next episode begins with Odd talking excitedly about downloading an MP3 file off the web

I haven’t gotten to that episode yet, but I distinctly remember Jeremie exclaiming “I just need a couple more bytes!” and Odd saving the day by closing out a game of Tetris that was running in the background

I remembered it wrong, Yumi was at the computer trying to save Jeremie after he convinced her to try and virtualize him (she messed it up because he didn’t bother to walk her through virtualizing someone step by step) and they needed “a few more bytes” of memory, so Odd plugged Ulrich’s gameboy into the system, which of course fixed the problem somehow. It was definitely Tetris though. He’d been up until 3am playing Tetris the night before. Tetris. Tetris saved Jeremie from deleting himself.

TL;DR: between the conflicting level of often nonsensical technological advancement, (how did a computer program just. make bees) occasionally awkward dubbing, (that was absolutely Ulrich’s voice coming out of Yumi’s mouth. yep. mm-hm. good) rare and often unsettling puns, and Odd’s hair, Code Lyoko is a surreal experience and I recommend it

Having social anxiety is like being added to a play without warning where you only have a vague idea of what is going on, and don’t know what your lines are supposed to be.

The only thing fire drills actually teach people is how to sarcastically leave a building as a group.