In essence, this is one area where you can have your cake and eat it :)! GOD is so awesome! HE lead me to this, while I was busy looking into how to make anime backgrounds. HE specifically pointed out that anime backgrounds have really strong ambient occlusion and smooth shadows and my first reaction was that toon shading and soft shadows don't mix. So anyway, I just started working on trying to get the background alone working and looking right, but I just couldn't get the look right, you know and HE said that I should try re-creating an existing scene or background and in doing so, I'll know what it takes, so I did and during that process, in the space of a day (half creating the scene and the other half, compositing), HE helped me find the solution.

I will add that I think McLelun's is quite a bit more anime-esque than mine is, but this one exercise was so worth it, I'm happy with it. If GOD did not challenge me to recreate an existing background, to learn how it works, I'd most likely still be thinking it's just not gonna work, haha.