The 80s were less progressive in some ways, such as the rampant sexism or the "Lolicon Boom" in the mid part of the decade, which sometimes left it's ugly traces on anime outside of Wretched OVAs.

On the other hand, the production of Anime was left to people far to the left of today in many cases. Be it unionized workers attempting to block the making of Future War Year 198X over its antisovietism, or openly anti-imperialist plots in say Fang of the Sun Dougram, SPT Blue Comet Layzner or the second Patlabor movie (1993, but still) to even outright progressive stances on LGBT+ people such as in a famous episode of Dirty Pair back in '85. Apparently Stop! Hibari-Kun (1983) features a transgender protagonist, and is full of transphobia... but the transphobes are the butt of the joke.

Then starting in the mid 90s Evangelion came and old lefty directors from the 70s and 80s started retiring, leaving the door open to Anime produced by weebs for weebs and the stuff that brought Anime infamy started showing up more and more (it was profitable). Probably peaking in the 2010s.