The Ruby Room of the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Event Center boomed with the hearty “’yo-ho-ho’s” of “One Piece” and the “’Kamehameha’s!” of “Dragon Ball.”
Those calls echoed from the first installment of JJ’s Anime Con at Walton & One last weekend. It was the Event Center’s third pop culture convention since 2024, now of a smaller scale with more of a focus on Japanese manga and anime.
Both are stock in trade for Jason and Joy Buvet, co-owners of JJ’s Anime Shop, an online merchandise warehouse they operate from home. The couple, through their love of Japanese pop culture, began selling figurines and smaller memorabilia through “almost 50 different cons” statewide, said Joy Buvet.
Much of what became JJ’s Anime Con is woven with PalmCon. The popular South Florida convention, which kicked off in Boca Raton in 2011, made its way to Port St. Lucie in 2024, where it has held two editions each November.
PalmCon founder Martin Pierro suggested Port St. Lucie to the Buvets, said Jason Buvet. “It was perfect, it was not too far from us. People know of it from PalmCon, and we plan on being, like, the other big convention for Port St. Lucie.”
Cons take talent to sell: in JJ’s case, voice actors known for dubbing anime shows. “We didn’t want to go (with) too many voice actors for our first convention, so we went with what we felt was safest,” said Jason Buvet.
The weekend’s talent included Elise Baughman, best known for voicing Pan, the protegee of hero Goku in “Dragon Ball GT.” “She was one of the nicest we met,” Jason Buvet said. “We reached out to her first.”
Baughman shared her insights on acting – from commercial voiceovers to the rigorous emotionality of anime – in a roundtable smaller than the usual table panel. She also teaches aspiring voice actors between five-week courses and private coaching with others in the industry.
“I feel that whatever type of class of acting you do, it helps with the other,” Baughman said. “I do teach those, as well, but you do learn from every teacher.”
Even away from the hustle of larger cities, JJ’s Anime Con attracted cosplayers and enthusiasts statewide. In a departure from cons in Miami, Glenyz Pereira, aka Masaki Princess Cosplay, hit the floor as Zanka Nijiku, one main character of “Gachiakuta.”
“I love it so much because of how it, like, highlights people of color,” Pereira said of the show. They added that shows like “Gachiakuta” made up for a lack of “representation” in her childhood. “Being a plus-sized, disabled, queer cosplayer, we don’t see that many of us in this community.”
The lighter notes of representation followed with the Mirai Maid Cafe, a costumed Orlando troupe offering parfaits and onigiri – seafood tuna wraps – with smiles and games of Janken – a translation of Rock Paper Scissors.
The business spun off of Ready, Game, Begin, an Orlando arcade that lasted from 2019 through 2022, said owner Maid Misa. She, like the Buvets, took her cadre of maids to cons in Florida and the southeast U.S. “This is one of the smaller ones that we’ve done.”
“Maid cafes are all about entertainment,” said Misa. Translating the cafe’s mores – like the cutesy “micro-interactions” between the maids and customers – “it brings joy to many guests who come to our locations.”
“These are our people,” Joy Buvet said. “They always wanted something like this in the neighborhood, and it really warms our hearts to know that we were able to provide that kind of service for them.”