Actually they
are straight on but Scribblette's trying to animate it from top view? At least that's what I'm seeing.
A while ago a friend I knew from my days using rpg maker asked me to design a template for an RPG. On the left is the rpg maker default character and the right is what I got before I stopped working on it. It's sketchy, but note the perspective difference between the two. I think, if you want to include the animation you're describing you'll need to bump up the perspective a few degrees.
There are two commonly used methods of foreshortening. Non-perspective and perspective. I drew three example cylinders, the first two are drawn with non-perspective foreshortening and the third with perspective foreshortening. Which method you prefer is, in the end up to you. I've found that 2d games are very... flat in the sense that they are mostly based upon a grid which does not change as it recedes into the distance, or as it approaches the foreground. But what's important are the symbols, so 3d likeness is a sort of low priority when you factor in everything. However, a lot of jRPGs are more passive and so the artist can afford to be less concerned with making things immediately readable. I don't think I've seen many jRPG styled games using perspective foreshortening, if they use foreshortening at all? But since you're trying to go for top view animation I thought I'd present you with some variations on this.
What I'm saying is, your templates up till the black guy, but then resuming at the stick figures, are all somewhere around the first cylinder. Somewhere between the first and the second cylinder is a happy spot where there's enough angle for good depth and not enough angle to obstruct information. Keep in mind, you can also apply the last cylinder not only to size, but to levels of detail. This has it's uses, like obscuring the unimportant parts of a figure. From my experience the head and chest are more important than the feet and legs of a figure. So it can help you out if you're having a lot of trouble with the lower legs/feet. ._.;
Edit: rewrote foreshortening paragraph for accuracy