Darkstalkers - Race Car Driver Felicia

It took me years to realise something:

Why do most 3D anime characters look so freaky, while others don't.

The answer is lighting. Anime is drawn with flat, crisp shading in mind, faces either have flat uniform lighting, or dramatic shadows.

Anime faces are designed with them being flat in mind, as they have to look good with such lighting without them being too complex to draw.

If the artist does 3D anime and applies the same lighting technique to it, that everything else uses, the facial shape gets lit unevenly, outlining the 3D shape and revealing its flat nature.

3D anime games from early 2000's are good example of that. Now, most artists learned how to properly light 3D anime faces so that they don't look outlandish.

This work is complicit in doing same thing early 3D artists done – apply proper 3D lighting to flat anime-sque face without evening the light out or modifying the face to have a bit more depth. Result is uncanny valley, though not as bad as it could be.

coincidentally, currently among trending images;

It can be done. But most 3D anime is created more out of budgetting reasons than aesthetic ones. With care, time, good thinking and LOTS of hard work (Especially the work, as usual with anime/manga), the style can actually be translated into 3D format.