LaMB Has a Good Idea, Reminds me of Thief II: The Metal Age

LaMB is an animated program that started on Animax last year, but I’ve been seeing these adverts for the program on the channel lately, when they talk about LaMBs and Lamination.

It’s caught my attention, and my brother’s, which is a rare thing. It’s got a lot of things going for it, as I’ve been reading it’s Animax’s first and biggest original production, broadcast in high definition. It even has mobile versions available and an online game.

But I couldn’t help but think when looking at the adverts such detailing the plot, that it reminded me of good old Thief II: The Metal Age, released in 2000. Of course LaMB is said to be based on Laminated Woman: To the Sand Planet Cerra, but it’s when I read about those prisoners being put into suits and serving in virtual slavery. That reminded me of Thief II: The Metal Age, when you see all those slaves walking around in those suits with golden masks. Maybe they weren’t all criminals – some of them were "vagabonds, street scum, prostitutes...those who will not be missed by anyone of consequence", in the words of Sheriff Gorman Truart.

Funny, I just connect these things and compare them sometimes.

In any case, perhaps it’s a good idea – to have imprisonment without prisons. To have these people in positions of slavery to pay off their debt to society. I mean from what I hear and read, these gang members and criminals in the Cape Flats prefer being in prison to being outside, because that’s where the power is. That’s where the number resides and controls things.

Imagine all the more room you’d save without prisons, and the money you’d save – having these guys sit in jail all day wasting tax payers’ money, not contributing anything of value to society. You seemingly can’t rehabilitate most of these people, seeing as they were never good people in the first place, because they weren’t raised properly, weren’t taught right from wrong, and just ended up being recidivists: habitual criminals who prefer being in jail to being outside with nothing and nobody, so they repeatedly commit offences. To them, jail is a cheap hotel with all the basic necessities that they can’t get on the streets.

LaMB Has a Good Idea, Reminds me of Thief II: The Metal Age