Why not get a scanner and hand draw your characters animation frames, using an art package to make your life easier of course. For instance, if you draw a basic arm, you could rotate it to suit the basic pose of whatever frame your working on, print it out, then go over it again in proper detail.
It's how they made the sprites for SF2, and if you can draw anime then it's really just a matter of spending the time - but your game might look stunning because of it. Your simply not gonna find someone willing to draw sprites for you, not at the sort of scale and volume you need. Really, you could look at it as a portfolio, if you wanted to go into animation or any sort of media like that then having a whole, hand drawn beat-em-up to show would go a long long way.