I played it on the PC, and more recently on a Genesis emulator. Saving state lets you really push your luck. I think I did the first island with 4 men and had about 3000 or something stupid saved for the last island. It wasn't anime, and I've not seen that before, but I've seen a version with custom character creation. Amiga or something? Dunno.
I suppose the original Mega-Lo-Mania had a kind of cartoonish style - especially the little sprites. I like it like that, though. The more something is defined, the more it accords to the artist's vision and adopted trends that I don't care about. If an artist can't be inspired by the original instead of thinking "this would be even better in anime/whatever" then he/she's the wrong person for the job, as far as I'm concerned. Nearly every time a game is remade and the style is updated along with the tech, my heart sinks. I don't blame them because people would complain and I'm probably a minority, and I suppose the more defined a sprite is, the more character it has to have. I think that's why I'm so reluctant to let go of retro styles, and why arbitrary design limits like pixelisation are so appealing to me. Modern game design elements really hit me as arbitrary instead of apt. I HATE arbitrary detail for the sake of it. I hate the Final Fantasy games after 7 because its like they see a space and have to fill it with meaningless detail out of pointless impulse. Even the soundtrack is just noise to me. It's like devs can't tell the difference between intricacy and artistry. Your sprites are damn good though. They're actually apt. That's rare.