Well, at least you're through it! Also, one year ago, huh? I thought you were, like, much older. Tehee.
Why yes I am! Though, in all honesty, I can totally understand the temptation to shove your workload onto others. Especially when you hold a rather high position and can leave the more mundane tasks to the proleta... um... interns. But you seem to be blessed with a nice, trust-based team in which everyone is comfortable with trusting others with proportional workload. Not being bossed over is also a big yay.
I suppose I'm just not weeaboo enough! But really, even when I was still watching them, I never watched that many. I started watching animu rather constantly in around 2006, I think. Now, though, I get my dose of digital entertainment from other stuff. Games, mostly. Music and games are the only Japanese things I truly like; the rest not so much unfortunately.
No problem, I'm always glad to talk about artists (especially those I like, of course). I've rendered some too, but either just enough for whatever I want to use the artwork for (siggy etc) or stopped midway. Yeah, I'm lazy, orz. As about other artists, yes, I do! In fact, many enough to make me not remember some of them.
Here are some I can remember on top of my head: Aka Ringo (Pixiv / samples), Kishida Mel (Pixiv / samples), Nagi Ryou (Pixiv / samples), Tsunako (Pixiv / samples), and many more among the not-so-well-known ones (eroge artists, etc).