your miss understanding this, cast animation is not the animation of the skill its the animation of casting then shows the skill and its animation
its a thing from yanfly battle core plugin
<Cast Animation: 129>
http://yanfly.moe/2015/10/10/yep-3-battle-engine-core/
No I'm not missunderstanding it.
The <Cast Animation> tag replaces the default circle animation that characters are playing right before their skills.
And something in your project seems a bit off, 'cause I can't recreate your problem.
I copied your code inside my actor like you did.
I set the <Cast Animation> tag to 100 for testing, and the animation is never played. Neither with 100TP cost nor 99TP cost.
I tested it further.
This time I copied the code inside a Sword instead of an actor, and let Marsha, Therese, and Harold learn that skill. Harold also can use other weapons now. I testet it with both costs, 100TP and 99TP.
When I have the sword on Herold, the animation would also never be played, regardless of whether I use the new command, or the skill from the skill menu.
If I equipe him with another weapon, that doesn't have that code, and use the skill from within his skill menu, the cast animation is played.
For Marsha and Therese the animation is also played, 'cause their weapons doesn't have that code.
For the next test, I copied the code in Marsha's cane, too.
Now neither Harold nor Marsha gets the cast animation, regardless of the cost, or from where I use the skill.