afaik the 80s were when the economy was going turbo speed, greed was very IN, japanese culture seemed poised to be world dominant, and like any group that suddenly is rich as fuck they were terrified of the idea of grit and crime.
it meant a shitload of money was just lying around for stuff like weird anime and people had a lot of emotions to sift through.
i should really maintain a watched list but here's some i can think of:
- Lily C.A.T.; solid Alien rip off
- Plastic Little; technically 90s but has that 80s feel. boobily breasty but great animation / sci fi setting (ships that can pilot a gas giant's vapours looking for gas whales in the space gas)
- midnight goku; slimy cyberpunk noir
- megazone 23; WATCH IT ASAP IF YOU HAVEN'T
- AD Police; very difficult to watch followup ova to bubblegum crisis. beautiful in parts but i can't finish it bc of all the violence against women :(
- mezzo forte; 90s again and technically porn but only so they could get enough money to finish making an otherwise interesting ova. it's a great testament to the 90s anime world: great animators begging for money that had all dried up in the crash and having to make a deal with a hentai company.
- armitage iii; asap watch if not seen
- butt attack punisher girl; buddha grants Ass Attack powers to a girl to fight Dark Buddha. I'm going to be real i haven't finished this one but it's certainly fascinating
- Cool Cool Bye; hideously unwatchable. i hated this. upon getting through ten minutes i said "i wish this was almost anything else"
- Cosmos Pink Shock; very cute stuff
- Metal Skin Panic Madox-01; absolutely wonderful rom com mecha thing, one of my faves
i'll probably think of more. i've been going through the stuff in this random collection i found:
https://archive.org/details/anime-stuff-one