The mistakes are there. Awful CGI crows, sound effects to nothing, horrifying looking background characters, backgrounds that look like something out of MS Paint, bad and grainy rendering, characters that look like lifeless puppets, overexaggerated sound effects, laughable voice acting from the generic copy and paste enemies, the usual still frame and slideshow disasters that can get almost as bad as those in Requiem of the Rose King, laughably bad 2D animation between the CGI, and silly errors like showing a guy who is sitting on the floor, but they still play the sound of him grunting and sitting down. There were many times early on that the series kept falling apart and sinking further. How could Rusted Armors redeem itself?
The writing in this is strong in that every characters is clearly shown their personal issues, their struggle to overcome, and their resolve as they try to stay mentally strong. The bond between the cast feels sincere like that of an actual family that really grew on me. This is mostly the story of two brothers, and the Rusted Armors: weapons that often look like gun swords that were used to cause power struggles in different countries. The main antagonist is comically evil, and even he gets some nice development by the end. I couldn't help but laugh at him hilariously dancing to classical music among the dead bodies around him after a battle.
Magoichi at first felt like a joke of a protagonist. As the series development, it turned out there was a lot more to him than I thought, and his somewhat naïve and foolish optimism became respectable to me. There's a tragedy to the core of Rusted Armor's story: He grew up teaching his brother to become powerful. This is something that would go to his brother's head, as Lucio would go on to use it to kill nations. Magoichi would later suffer from memory loss, and try to undo what he caused while slowly remembering that he wasn't always the typical hero main character he was revealed to be in the beginning. His teacher Oda is voiced by Toshiki Masuda who also voiced Yamato from Megaton-kyuu Musashi. As a result, I already knew to expect a wonderful performance. Magoichi's best friend Deku is a silly character, that as annoying and foolish as he is, is still a loveable brute.
One of the ideas explored is the purpose and meaning of power. One character might see power only as a means to conquer and kill; that those without are to be preyed upon. As satisfying as this view is to Lucio, it's hollow and covering up for his insecurities. Poetically, It is his abuse and obsession with power that becomes his downfall. Another idea explored is finding a purpose. As I mentioned earlier, the viewers will come to understand what exactly each main character is really about, and their purposes that they realize in life.
As the ED played one last time with Magoichi aimlessly flailing his Rusted Armor around in the purple void to Fantastics from Exile Tribe's nice and melancholy ending sequence song, and as the voice acting cast said goodbye in the after segment, this series did bring a tear to my eye. Maybe I am the only that saw something in this that the few others who watched it and hated it didn't, and maybe I am not the best at explaining this, but this series really connected with me and I didn't want it to end.
