Code Lyoko Episode 4 Review

[AeonFrodo]

Code Lyoko Season 1 Episode 4: Log Book

In today’s episode, Sissi steals Ulrich’s diary and resorts to blackmailing him. Yumi isn’t all too happy about this, and goes on her own investigation...

This episode had a really interesting Lyoko part to it, so let’s focus on that first. It’s in the Desert Sector for the third time, but there is a nice twist to it. Apparently, one of XANA’s Megatanks managed to conjure up a sandstorm. Now, how that happened is beyond me, but it’s a really nice concept on Lyoko in the Desert Sector. For one, even though it’s made by XANA, shows that Lyoko is capable of having weather conditions, and second, it’s difficult for the Lyoko Warriors to see through it, making anticipating any attack from said monster hard to spot before its too late. Sadly, this doesn’t come up in any other episode of Code Lyoko, so it’s a one of a kind. It’s a shame, because it really could’ve been used in some XANA attacks during Lyoko.

Also, during Lyoko, it also spells out the first instance of how dangerous the Digital Sea really is. It had been touched upon subtly in two episodes before, but now its revealed to be extremely dangerous to Aelita, because it’s pretty much instant death for her.

Anyway, this episode is the first episode that begins to focus on Ulrich and Yumi as a couple. Although there are implications in Teddygozilla, it’s not an enough to really say they’re more than friends. However, this episode confirms there’s something more between them, especially after they succeed in Lyoko and Yumi returns Ulrich’s diary to him. It seemed liked Ulrich wanted to thank Yumi with his actions instead of just a ‘thank you’. This, along with Yumi’s determination to bail Ulrich out of a difficult situation with Sissi adds a serious three-dimensional aspect to the episode, evolving this show to display it’s more than just saving the world to these kids.

Speaking of Sissi, she’s been given the three-dimensional treatment too. She may be a spoilt principal’s daughter, but this is the first episode she actually shows she could be nice, despite the Earth section of the episode is focused on the problem she caused. She actually apologises for her actions and helps out the people trapped on the bus (under Ulrich’s instructions). It’s great that Ulrich accepts her apology too. Also, the artwork during Sissi’s discovery of Ulrich diary is pretty neat too, there’s only two scenes similar to this in later Code Lyoko episodes, and should’ve been shown more often during flashbacks/special scenes.

Due to her efforts on Earth, Yumi really should’ve been the one to save the day, especially because she only survived a short while during the debut of her Lyoko outfit in the last episode. She activated her own bitch mode, giving Sissi a taste of her own medicine, found Ulrich’s diary twice (thanks to the return to the past) and returned it to him without reading it. It shows how loyal Yumi is to her friends, and that she would do anything to get them out of a tough situation, even skip classes. But due to the circumstances of the episode, and in particular the twist that happened on Lyoko, she was prevented from being the heroine on both fronts.

The major thing this episode suffers from is that the voice cast is still deciding on how the characters sound, and this is also the last episode that the other voice actors for Odd and Sissi’s part are present. This sadly, affects how they actually pronounce particular words, such as Lyoko. Odd sounded like he was almost saying ‘yolko’ at one point, which doesn’t sound great to anybody who knows how Lyoko is pronounced. The voice acting really what should be Code Lyoko’s first great episode down, which is really disappointing.

This is a really solid episode, and it appears that things are looking up for Code Lyoko. It makes me look forward to the next episode, however unexciting it turns out to be.

Score: 8/10

Loose bits: A book that looks exactly like Ulrich’s diary is present in his room is in the middle of the floor, while Ulrich is looking for his diary. How did Sissi know which book was Ulrich’s diary? Also, the book seems to magically change its colour to orange at the end of the episode.

Are Jeremie’s shoes slippers? When he gets off his bed, there are no socks present on the floor, just his shoes.

Yumi skids a long way on the path when Chardin calls out to her. Considering that the path is concrete, Yumi shouldn’t have skidded that far at all.

The activated tower was on the same level as Aelita when she first got a visual of it, but when Yumi and Aelita are heading towards it, they go down a downwards slope. So, is the tower Aelita first saw was an illusion?

How Odd is able to perform a double horizontal twist in mid-air and landing on the other side of the chasm just after losing forward momentum to throw Aelita to the other side definitely defies physics. Perhaps his other Lyoko power is to perform stunts that defy the laws of inertia.

Quotes: “Ah... Eight slices of toast and three bananas. Not bad.” – Odd

“What’s wrong? Afraid the wall’s going to crumble?” – Ulrich

“First of all, it’s hard to say no to a pretty girl like me. And second of all, I’m not going to give you any choice.” – Sissi

“The answer is no! For the last time, I didn’t have a nosejob!” – Sissi

“I know what I’m doing isn’t very nice, but it’s the only way I can get him to stop ignoring me.” – Sissi (in her diary)

“Well, I wanted to tell you how much I like your style. I ran into that dipstick Jim today. What an idiot he looks like in that idiot gym suit of his.” – Yumi (impersonating Sissi)

“Tell me where you got Ulrich’s diary hidden. And hurry up, or all your nasty little secrets would be on page one of the school newspaper.” – Yumi

“There, you see. It’s good to have real friends, isn’t it?” – Ulrich

“It’s about time; I thought that guy would never get off your back.” – Herve

“No thanks. The little girl can take care of herself.” – Sissi

“No wait. This is too easy. Coming all this way without seeing one monster. There’s got to be a trap.” – Yumi

“I’ll tell you about it one day Yumi.” – Ulrich

“Looking for something?” – Ulrich

[Snickie]

Just a thought that popped into my head during this episode:
Poor Einstein. I can't imagine it felt good for him when Yumi punched him in the mouth after Jeremie told her about the blackmailing.

By the way, does nobody find it even a little bit...I dunno....weird that Yumi shut the door behind her and Jeremie when it was just the two of them in his room? I know they do it to keep outside people from overhearing, but really, it looks bad with just the two of them. It probably looks worse when Odd and Ulrich are in there too, but still.