This was one of my foundational shows (the manga came later), and yes, it still slaps, I did a rewatch recently.
It's also amazing and humbling to look back and realise how much of the craft on display in this (and other) anime I've somehow internalised in my own (attempts at) storytelling.
When the researcher goes (paraphrasing here) "Nagahama came from stage direction, so he adapted some of its techniques to really pull the viewers in... and Dezaki is the master of distilling an emotion and splashing it across the entire canvas of the screen", I'm like "oh, yeah, that tracks. I guess I try to clumsily do something similar when I deep dive into a character's emotions." and then the dominoes start falling as I link different little quirks I have to other shows and manga I grew up with, and the "oh." grows quieter.
I owe a ton to a bunch of Japanese masters, even more than I was actively aware of, is all I'm saying.