Thanks for the comments, Kansa. The problem with frames 1, 2, and 8 had to do with global lighting. After I finally figured out what was causing it, it was a cinch to fix.
I originally had intended to have 'moe~ moe~ kyun~' phase in and out at key parts of the gif, but I didn't get to that until the very end, and then realized too late my mistake - PS can be a real pain when it comes to making changes (especially adding new layers) into a gif after everything else is done - particularly when it comes to fade effects. I'm too lazy to do it now, lol.
Again, it's still a work in progress, so any comments or suggestions would be appreciated~
Oh, btw, kansa, I used Photoshop for all of the image work - the only other program I used was windows movie maker to convert my gif into an avi file so I couls then import all the frames of it into photoshop easily for editing.