TOTTORI -- A superhero clad in a green suit stood before an audience of about 200 children and their parents, calling on them for help.
"Please lend me your powers," he implored, after a villain in a black costume had cackled, "I'll increase CO2 by brute force!"
The hero then launched an attack on the villain, shouting: "Take that! 'Tottori love beam!'"
The hero and villain eventually patched things up and ended on an encouraging note, telling the audience, "Work hard at saving the environment and making Earth a better place to live."
The scene occurred at a municipal nursery school in the town of Yazu, Tottori Prefecture, in mid-June. Under the name Eco Sentai Sunabazu, the green-suited hero visits kindergartens and nursery schools and battles a villainous CO2 character to save the Earth, educating children along the way about ways to prevent global warming.
Sunabazu's call seems to have reached the audience.
After the show, Nana Iwaki, 5, said: "It was fun. I'll keep my promise to Sunabazu and care for the Earth."
Her mother, Nozomi, 32, said, "The show was interesting because it clearly explained solutions that are close at hand."
The superhero is actually Iori Komoto, 21, a senior in the environmental studies department of Tottori University of Environmental Studies who researches renewable energy. Komoto "transforms" into Sunabazu and calls on children to live an eco-friendly lifestyle, dispensing such advice as: "Early to bed and early to rise. Save water. Those are the keys to a healthy Earth."
The villain was played by Yasuhiro Miyazaki, 25, a member of nonprofit organization Environmental Community Organization for the Future of Tottori.
Komoto and Miyazaki hope the show becomes an opportunity for children and their parents "to think together about eco-friendly lifestyles."
The Tottori prefectural government requested that the NPO act as the Tottori Center for Climate Change Actions (TCCCA), the prefectural base for promoting global warming countermeasures. The government commissions the NPO with organizing performances as part of its environmental projects. Komoto frequents the TCCCA's office at his university.
In autumn 2016, Komoto proposed creating a superhero who can motivate children to think about environmental issues.
He bought a costume and wrote a script he thought would appeal to children, then formed a group with Miyazaki and four to five like-minded classmates. The group began appearing at events and visiting facilities in January 2017.
Unlike typical good-versus-evil stories, Komoto's script does not leave the CO2 character completely vanquished in the end.
"The true villains are humans who increase CO2 emissions, and I want the audience to realize that," Komoto said.
Sunabazu is a solo hero, but Komoto calls his character a "sentai," or squad, in the hopes that more people will join the ranks of those who care for the environment.
With a motto of "100 people making individual efforts is better than 1 individual making 100 efforts," Sunabazu and his team believe grassroots activism will help slow global warming.
At home, Komoto said he sets his refrigerator's power setting to low and decreases the brightness of his TV screen.
"There are many things you can do now to help save money on electricity," Komoto said. "I want to get the word out that efforts to prevent global warming lead to improving people's quality of life."
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