Ecodaidobutsuen or Ecodazoo, as translated in English is a very creative flash site by Enjin INC, McCann Erickson Japan and ROXIK to encourage people to live in a more environmental friendly way.

The site loads into a cardboard treehouse that has different animals at different levels the higher you go scroll, and upon clicking each animal, a pop up storybook appears, with amazing attention to detail, such as the cutouts behind the popups, deliberate spacing around the characters to project a cutout image, pages off scrap pieces of paper used to “build” the pop ups, and the props supporting the pop ups.

Those aren’t the important messages that yearns to be carried across, however. These characters show that they care about the environment through their actions shown by the storybook pop ups.

There’s Ms. Angkor Watt, who is an angler fish that turns off all the lights in schools and offices where she works in

When turning the page,

her school made out of a cutout of an empty milk carton

The amount of detail poured into each page of the storybook. As you drag your mouse around, you can see the back of the pop ups, and how they would look like with the props. This just makes it seem all the more real.

While Ms. Angkor Wat encourages you to switch off your lights when you are not using them, Mrs. Roo the kangaroo encourages you to bring your own shopping bag.

There are other characters as you drag your mouse upwards, going up the treehouse, so to speak. There’s also Yagi-chan who really is a goat in disguise as a sheep, Mr. Kappa Field, a kappa ( a japanese mythological folklore creature) who reduces disposable cups and plates, and Mr. Bag the bagworm.

It takes a while to load, but the site is a must-visit. I really think it’s a very effective way to get people to be more environmental-friendly, especially kids.

Visit them at Ecodazoo