Introduction
G’day, fellow adventurers! Blaziker is back for yet another essay and I got to be honest, this is an essay I had been dying to write about for some time, especially given I had just finished watching The Lost Tiger. If you have not guessed it by now, then I am going to talk about the Tales from Sanctuary City movie series today!
Created by the Australian animation studio Like a Photon Creative (who surprised everyone with one of the best family-friendly foreign CG animated movies of recent memory with Scarygirl together with another studio, Highly Spirited), the Tales from Sanctuary City is a six-part, thematically connected talking animal animated movie series centring about one city: Sanctuary City, which based on observations is a cumulating of various cities across Australia.
Each movie focuses on a different main character of a different native Australian animal species (with the exception in The Sloth Lane, where the main characters are sloths which are native in South America, but fits into the Latino/Mexican roots of the sloth characters), each tackles a different genre and while the formula for these movies are similar, each movie is distinctively different and you do not need to watch them in order to appreciate this series.
So, why am I talking about this series in particular? Is this yet another excuse to talk about family-friendly foreign CG animated movies again even though most of the animation community do not like them in general? Well, yes, but also no, because given it is quite rare to see long animated movie series in mainstream animated movies, let alone outside of Hollywood, so something like Tales from Sanctuary City is rare.
In this essay, I will talk about what makes the Tales of Sanctuary City series stand out compared to most family-friendly foreign CG animated movies and why you should consider trying out this series, even if the average quality of those six movies might not be high.
So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get right straight into the action!
The Celebration of the Australian Identity, Culture and Animals
One of the main ideals of the Tales from Sanctuary City series was how this series celebrates Australia in a nutshell, the ideals of the Australian identity and its diverse culture.
Watching those six movies in a span of two years, I noticed each Sanctuary City movie has a common theme, and they have the following:
- An animal species native to Australia (with the exception of one movie)
- A cultural element
- A different movie genre to make them stand out
- Minor cameo roles from characters in the previous movie (with the exception of the first movie)
- An Australian city that best fits each movie
With that said, I am not going to bore you with too many details on each movie, so here is a summary of how each of the six movies fits in with the theme. Note that since there are two Combat Wombat movies, I will be combining them as both movies share the same common theme (except for cameo roles as they are spoiler moments):
| Movie/Element | Main Animal Species | Culture Element(s) | Movie Genre | Australian City/Cities |
| The Wishmas Tree | Possums | Origins of Australia | Adventure | Darwin, Northern Territories |
| Combat Wombat and Combat Wombat: Back 2 Back | Wombats, sugar gliders | (No cultural elements that I could think of) | Superhero | Sydney, New South Wales |
| Daisy Quokka: World’s Scariest Animal | Quokkas | Tourism, sports tourism | Sports | Hobart, Tasmania |
| The Sloth Lane | Sloths (though not native in Australia, which was on purpose) | Authentic cooking, family, cricket, MasterChef Australia | Cooking | Melbourne, Victoria and Adelaide, South Australia |
| The Lost Tiger | Tasmanian Tigers, kangaroos | Aboriginal/First Nation representation | Sports, adventure | Brisbane, Queensland and Perth, West Australia |
From the above, it is clear that while the stories within the Sanctuary City movies are not related, they share similar themes and settings, and that makes it a very unique series, not by the stories, but by inter-connecting ideas. Honestly, I find it to be novel that each movie has a different identity that are all somehow connected.
Speaking of connections, one other unique feature is that you do not need to watch this movie in the exact order, so just because you skip out one of these movies, does not mean you will be unable to connect the dots together. However, those that manage to see these movies would realise one other unique feature, and it is that there are cameo appearances from returning characters from the previous movies, but all of them either have a very minor role or a non-speaking role, and do not play any important role in the story where they are not the main characters. Hence, this is also why it is not important over what movie sequence to cover the series.
As such, one of the reasons why I cover the series was the uniqueness this series has compared to other animated movie series in how it celebrates the Australian identity, as well as other quirks that made this series one of a kind. I honestly cannot find any other animated series where its focus is on the land where the series took place.
How Scarygirl Shaped Sanctuary City for the Better
The second thing to talk about the series overall is the progression of this series, especially when we consider Scarygirl to the mix.
It is easy to overlook that this was a series that took place over six years, the first three of which (The Wishmas Tree, Combat Wombat and Daisy Quokka) were released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having seen those three animated movies for myself, I got to admit, the overall quality of those three were not as great, as they suffer from the same problems that I pointed out in a lot of the family-friendly foreign CG animated movies at that time, mainly the lower quality writing, the similar boring animation style and lack of interesting factors that made them stand out.
However, in between the first half and the second of Sanctuary City, a certain movie Like a Photon Creative was working on got released in 2023, and that was Scarygirl, a movie adaptation of a long forgotten PlayStation video game that surprised the animation community by being a competent family-friendly animated movie that does more than that. That movie has a unique gothic feel, the character development in Scarygirl was way better than expected, the writing was full of unexpected twists that enhanced the story and overall, Scarygirl was such a surprise that when I saw the first three Sanctuary City movies after Scarygirl, I thought, “Wait, that’s from the same studio?”
Strangely enough, the second half of Sanctuary City, which were released after Scarygirl, was where the series took an unexpected turn for the better. Combat Wombat: Back 2 Back, The Sloth Lane and The Lost Tiger all have more cohesive and interesting stories that reflect the Australian culture in each movie, the characters have better depth and worth rooting for, the animation quality were noticeably better and more importantly, these three movies stand out compared to most of the family-friendly foreign CG animated movies I had covered. In fact, both The Sloth Lane and The Lost Tiger adopt the same animation style Scarygirl, and given Scarygirl was praised for its animation style, can you blame Like a Photon Creative for changing up the animation style in their main series?
As such, you have to thank Scarygirl for not just showcasing that great quality family-friendly foreign CG animated movies do exist, but it also helped the studio to think about the changes they have to make to stand out in their future movies, and it definitely shows in the second half of the Tales from Sanctuary City series.
Furry Bait, or More than That?
The third and final element to take note of is whether the Tales of Sanctuary City series is a clear furry bait series, or whether this series is more than that.
Before I continue, let me post this hot take, especially given my recent essay talking about 5 animated movie hot takes: no studio produced these talking animal, anthropomorphic animated movies for the intention of creating furry bait, but the furry community themselves are responsible for making them as so. When Zootopia was produced, was it made for the intention of capitalising on the furry community? The answer: definitely not, and neither do a lot of similar movies ever since Zootopia.
In fact, when Like a Photon Creative founder and creator of this series Riccaro Cusso produced this series, I am certain he was not thinking of the furry community when producing the series, but rather creating this series to showcase more of Australian animation which was still underrepresented in the global animation community, despite the presence of many great Australian animated movies. As such, I see the Tales from Sanctuary City series as not a furry bait animated movie series, but rather as mentioned above, a celebration of what makes this series so faithfully Australian.
The Tales from Sanctuary City series was created with the intention to showcase the Australian identity, celebrating different aspects of Australian culture, cities and wildlife by encompassing it into a unified city, and I will stand by that fact.
Conclusion
There you have it, my overall thoughts on why the Tales of Sanctuary City series is nothing like other animated movie series, its unique features as well as the progression of this series. I will admit, the fact that this series will end after The Lost Tiger felt like a closure of one chapter for Like a Photon Creative, but it did not need to overstay its welcome. It already accomplishes its purpose of showcasing the Australian identity with six movies in the series, and I am at peace with that.
Well, now that we reach the end of the Sanctuary City series, it is time to move forward and explore more exciting animated movies from across the world, shall we? Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
