Nostalgia aside these old cartoon were awesome.
Especially the spaceship designs, take Albator, capitaine Flam, Ulysses 31, and throw in Mysterious cities of gold for good measure, and you'll be in design heaven. I've very rarely seen so beautiful spaceship even in today's movies.
And I miss any kind of show with lasers and explosions, were are the fucking lasers gone?
And at the time, less censorship meant they were not affraid to show you people die. Especially since these show were rarely seen in the US so less puritanism too.

There's a "Star Blazers" connection that too few people are aware of: original plans were for Albator / Captain Harlock to be Alex Wildstar (or whatever the hell his name was in Japanese). Would've been the Yamato / Argo occasionally assisted by Harlock against the Gamelons.

I love so much this series. I got it all on the officially-released VHS. It was later released on DVD and am itching to go get it.