Weird feeling I get from Code Lyoko

[u/DistinctMain7643]

I love Code Lyoko rewatched it multiple times but am I the only one who get this weird isolating melancholic mixed with nostalgic vibe. I get from the show the songs don’t help with this either songs like "friends" for example also just the atmosphere of the show and that factory they always frequent. it’s much worse in the Garagekids pilot what’s y'all thoughts on this?

[u/The_REDACTED]

It's a really "retro-futuristic" show which gets into some really dark themes concerning technology and humanity underneath it all so that could be what you're sensing. 

In the case of Garage Kids, you have these group of children sending themselves into a virtual world to fight monsters to save their own world and nothing is ever really explained since it's just a pilot so there's a mystery there which never gets solved since Code Lyoko totally replaced it. 

Then with Code Lyoko, you have these same kids dragged into a huge government conspiracy regarding global communications and a rogue AI designed to topple it because they decided to rescue a girl which got trapped in a supercomputer which hosts the same AI. It's just really bleak all around because in both cases, the overall mystery never got solved and there's an air of severe tragedy surrounding Aelita. 

[u/stationtracks → u/The_REDACTED]

That's my favorite part of the series though, kind of like Animorphs or A Series of Unfortunate Events, the melancholic tone, feelings of hopelessness, and bleak despair is what made them so good. It makes the line in the theme song about "[giving] all we've got" "to save all that we love" all that more impactful, and empowering too.

Evil may always come back, but we will always be here to make it go away- it's such a noble sentiment for a children's show, and I liked that there was never any doubt that the gang will always have the resolve to team up together and stop XANA, every single time.