The Cosplay community is up in arms over the apparent theft of a six-year-old’s robot costume.
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The BMO costume disappeared from Wollongong Town Hall Saturday as almost 6000 people attended the annual Comic Gong convention.
Its wearer, known only as Mac, won over the crowd when he took to the stage and ‘‘twirled’’ the boxy get-up, without moving his feet. He later took off his carefully decorated box, and it soon went missing, Wollongong City Council’s manager of libraries Jenny Thompson said.
‘‘Some young people passing by found it and ... took it with them. It’s not known if they knew it belonged to someone, or thought it was a prop,’’ Ms Thompson said.
‘‘It’s just one of those unfortunate things. It has marred a fabulous day for Wollongong.’’
BMO (pronounced Beemo) is a friendly robot character from the American animated series Adventure Time.
Members of the tight-knit Cosplay (costume play) community went online to condemn the theft as ‘‘messed up’’ and the act of ‘‘low lives’’.
‘‘Some people have no consideration the time and effort gone into costumes, and to go so far to steal is absolutely disgusting,’’ wrote Zoe Patterson.
Wrote Bradley Paterson: ‘‘For Mac keep on cosplaying don’t let this stop your cosplaying future.’’
This year’s Comic Gong drew 5800 to town hall, up from an estimated 4000 in 2014, and about 1600 in 2013, when the event was begun at a Corrimal venue.
Ms Thompson said the costume could be returned to Wollongong Library, where staff would attempt to pass it on to Mac.