Well, I think if your source is very grainy and you want to preserve that grain, then most of the "complexity" of your source is in the grain. In other words: What's "under" the grain doesn't matter that much anymore. So your source actually isn't a typical "anime" source. Instead the the "grain" tuning of x264 should apply. Also from what I know, AQ doesn't help for gain retention at all. The purpose of AQ is to move bits from "complex" area to "flat" area. But if you have a lot of grain (and preserve it), then, as said before, most of the complexity is just grain - and the grain is everywhere in the frame. So all blocks have (more or less) the same complexity in that case. Consequently we don't want AQ to move bits away from certain blocks, as that would kill grain in those blocks, while it is retained in others...