I think you are right, although it is simple to go from a list to a function (just iterate over it) or back (store function values in an array).
So it really doesn't matter too much, but you can pick the one that best suits your code, as you described.
(Personally I find ArtistAnimation to be the most convenient)
If your result is very large, it might be good to use FuncAnimation so you don't need to store your data. MPL still stores it's own copy for plotting, but this factor two might make a difference.