Oh I don’t know if I saw akira – the one I saw was actually the only one I saw from that era. I never could track down what it was called.
But I go earlier apparently; when I was 11 or so, on an odd channel on cable in the summertime, they played this thing called “Starblazers”.
I never saw anything like it.
Rousing theme song, STORIES that weren’t STUPID. And the stories CONTINUED – they weren’t single episodes.
I learned later it was a SPACE OPERA – and it was an early style of anime.
A year or two later I saw THE LOST CITIES OF GOLD which was the same kind of epic story that kept playing and didn’t make me feel stupid like most kids tv did.
[I didn’t know until years alter that most of my cartoons were just 1/2 hour toy commercials, that they eventually banned from being made in the early 1990s – I mean, they required some kind of educational value, more than just a “moral of the story” at the end.
But Star Blazers is forever burned in my head. Funny thing is: i never got into anime. But I saw a few earlies.