Space-themed anime
 

I've seen:
Gundam
Macross
Yamato (watching now)

Want something like those series, don't care about mecha presence. Just want MC to be male and not a child of 13 y.o., but a teenager or older.

Is Planetes at least a bit action'y?

Waiting for suggestions :)

Trigun... it takes place on a foreign planet with an old west kind of premise. It's hilarious.

A bit, but it's much more firmly located in the "slice-of-life" genre.

I'd suggest Crest/Battle of the Stars.

Currently there is Space Brothers, but being as it focuses on the real-life training of astronauts it doesn't have much action either.

I have had a hard time trying to get into Legend of the Galactic Heroes because of how Germanic it is, but it's generally considered one of the classics.

With more realistic and slice of life take there are Space Brothers where MC is in his 30s. Really good series in my opinion.

There's always Cowboy Bepop, though that can be hit or miss depending on whether you like shows with an episodic format. If you're a fan of Quentin Tarantino or Hong Kong martial arts/gangster flicks, chances are you'd enjoy the series. The main character is a man with a violent past.

If you can look past the must-be-male-main-character requirement, I would recommend Voices of a Distant Star as well. It offers an interesting spin on space travel that actually takes time dilation into consideration, an important factor in physics usually overlooked by sci-fi stories.

Finally, there's Pale Cocoon. It does not involve space travel, but the story is set in a post-apocalyptic Moon colony.

Battle athletes victory. It's a fun show. Give it like 5 eps to decide. I liked it

Space Brothers - It's not really an action anime though

If you like Gundam you might like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It's a well received series and I'm sure you will like it.

Poster

If you've seen Yamato, probably you might like Ginga Tetsudou Monogatari or Galaxy Railways Tales. (Please note that it is not Galaxy Railways 999). It consists of Season 1 and Season 2 (frequently marked as I or II), and 4 in-between OVAs, which do have a relation to Galaxy 999, but as far as to introduce a new character for the second season, so you don't have to get stuck with Maetel and Tetsuro by default (as Leiji usually does).

The story evolves around a special unit of adults and young adults, whose job is to secure space travel and the safety of the Railways, but they also do other things like capturing prisoners, shooting down a meteor rain, serve as bodyguards, or counter dimensional breaches.

Based on what you've seen, and your wish for something actiony, without suggesting more of the exact same:

https://bsrm5q.blu.livefilestore.com...tar.jpg?psid=1

It's very much an embodiment of the 90's space adventure anime scene. It's not as big a scope as Gundam, Macross, or Yamato, and if you've watched Cowboy Bebop, it's got more similarities to it than the aforementioned three shows. It also has a surprisingly good dub, if you care.

If you're looking for more of the same epic scope of your three listed shows, than there's a long list of epic space opera/sci-fi/mecha shows.

You can start with a number of shows by Yoshiyuki Tomino (father of Gundam):

Space Runaway Ideon (some might say the spiritual precursor to Evangelion) would be a good show of his to start with, though he's got a very long list of shows to his credit, which tend to flip flop between epic space/sci-fi opera and more light-hearted, almost comedic, shows (Ideon would fall in the former category, and embodies a lot of what Tomino used to be quite famous for-sadly, he's apparently been to therapy and become a more well-adjusted human being since those days :heh:).

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is pretty much a must-see for anyone interested in space epics. It's over 100 episodes long (plus numerous OVAs and movies, so it's a big commitment), and very much a product of its times, but I feel like it's a classic that any fan of the space opera/sci-fi/military genre owes themselves to see at least once. There's a ton, a ton of talking, but there's also decapitating people with axes. On space ships. :heh: It's a very self-indulgent treatise on social ills ranging from mode of governments to religion to politics to social strata to...well...you get the drift (and again, very much a product of its times, so don't expect to see much on the role of women among all the other social issues it chooses to cover in immense detail, as an example). As long as you keep that perspective, I think it's a fantastic series, and not something you'll see come along in anime again...possibly ever.

Armored Trooper Votoms is sort of the quintessential military/mecha/space sci-fi (with heavy emphasis on military), and spans 52 episodes and numerous OVAs.

If we want to move into less actiony, more slice of life styled space-related shows:

Moonlight Mile has surprisingly little action, but is still stocked full of testosterone as it tells a pretty good adult (and surprisingly realistic if you look beyond the immense testosterone) story that nominally centers around two friends who choose very different paths to space after having conquered every mountain on Earth (with Everest being their last), with world powers and the emerging technologies and policies that are starting to fuel a new space race serving as a backdrop (amusing anecdote: even with the space race against the USSR long behind us, I remember when I did an internship at Kennedy Space Center, being shown an unintentionally comical video about protecting yourself against international espionage, complete with goose-stepping Chinese soldiers, so I suspect that aspect of the show actually undersold the reality of what it'd be like in real life if a real economic space race began). Its biggest downside is it ends abruptly, with no resolution (it's based on pre-existing work, and rather than do an anime original ending, they simply...ended, I guess to keep open the possibility of further seasons down the road, and with 21 volumes out of the manga, there's a lot of source material left to cover). As an aside, I far preferred it to the currently running Space Brothers. :heh:

You've obviously heard about Planetes, and while it's not an action anime per se, everything that seems episodic in the first half to 2/3rds does actually end up culminating in a fairly action/drama way for the last third or so. One might say the main character is a woman, but it's more of an ensemble, than a focus on one character.

Neither of the following two shows have a male adult as the protagonist, but at least the first one is sort of a staple of any space/astronaut anime fan's library:

Twin Spica is a "cuter" take on the astronaut training story, revolving around children who want to be astronauts. It's a surprisingly mature show (hence the quotes around "cuter"), despite the choice of using children as the cast, and a sense of melancholy permeates the whole thing. Probably my second favorite astronaut-in-training type of space drama.

If you wanted a little more mainstream aspects to your astronaut training story, Rocket Girls has that. The science and engineering was entertaining (and semi-realistic) enough that I could forgive them shoe-horning in skin-tight body suits and other aspects that were obviously meant to try to bring in some of the mainstream anime audience.

Wow, thanks everyone!!

I've seen TTGL and Pale Cocoon.
I'll guess I'll try to stick with Planetes for now, while waiting for Unicorn and Yamato to come out.

Space Brothers and Planetes for sure if you want good space series with realistic elements, you'll be disappointed if you're looking for action though.