On most hardware and under OpenGL1.2 without extra extensions, the textures in video memory have to be in powers of 2, starting at 64x64. It won't allow you to create a 64x128 texture, for example. Rectangular texture support was added later.
So if you load up an image as a 8x8 image it will sit on its own 64x64 texture, wasting lots of space. I don't know whether LoadAnimImage lets you grab stuff at non-power-of-two sizes, but if it does, it would grab them into power-of-two textures. So yes probably it would waste videoram.
If you are willing to learn OpenGL yourself you could store your full image containing all the anim frames as a single texture and then set up your own quads with texture mapping, adjusting the texture coordinates for each so that it shows only the frame you want.
So if you load up an image as a 8x8 image it will sit on its own 64x64 texture, wasting lots of space. I don't know whether LoadAnimImage lets you grab stuff at non-power-of-two sizes, but if it does, it would grab them into power-of-two textures. So yes probably it would waste videoram.
If you are willing to learn OpenGL yourself you could store your full image containing all the anim frames as a single texture and then set up your own quads with texture mapping, adjusting the texture coordinates for each so that it shows only the frame you want.