Anime is challenging. Because anime is widley accept as trashy and dorky a market and skill are all completely based on opinions. To become a good artist you have to make art that no one else has. You need to distinguish yourself, and above all practice practice practice. What I believe would help you the most is to watch anime cartoons and rather than listening to the story you should digest each little trick that the multiple artists use. Because trust me 4 or 5 artists usually come together to create everything. By digesting and really trying to mimic and possibly change some techniques you could learn what distiguishes and makes each character as an individual different, when drawing it is best to consider the personality, this should determine what the anime character dresses like. For example a punk rocker will not wear some skimpy little pink dress unless it has barbwire and spiders on it. Not that that is the best suggestion at all, just an example. You could also distinguish yourself as an artist by giving your anime a quality no one else can recreate. Use contrast and don't worry about shading, after all anime looks like nothing you would see in the real world. Maybe you could distinguish yourself by really paying attention to the eye colors or clothing colors of the anime characters. Who said anime couldn't be quality and eye candy?
