Mad Machine

Mad Machine ("Maddo mashīn" マッドマシーン) is a chapter of the Astro Boy manga which originally ran in Shonen magazine in September 1958.

Plot Summary
The first robot representative in parliament, Mr. Colt, passed a law that all robots get an official annual holiday each year called “Machine Day”. This means that one day a year, all the robots in Japan get to have a rest from all the constant work that humans created them to perform. But some humans strongly resent being deprived of their robot workers on this one single day.

A mad scientist named Dr. Foola agrees to help them put the robots in their proper place. They agree to pay Foola one billion yen for him to activate his mad machine that emits waves that causes all machines including robots to go crazy. But Foola announces to Ochanomizu that mad machine will activate in five minutes at noon and demands another billion yen to prevent it.

The Professor calls Astro to the laboratory and dismantles him so he won't go crazy. Chaos ensues as robots, cars, radios and everything else turn wild at noon. Even Dr. Foola's clients are appalled and beg him to turn mad machine off. But he refuses unless they give him another two billion yen.

Fortunately, Ochanomizu notices that the mad machine stops for a rest every once in a while, for about three minutes. He quickly reassembles Astro during the break period and Astro is able to locate and destroy the mad machine before he goes crazy. Dr. Foola goes to jail and Mr. Colt renames the robot holiday "Astroboy Day" in honor of his heroism.

Collected Volumes
This story has been collected in the following volumes:


 * Astro Boy, Volume 5 (Kodansha)
 * Astro Boy, Volume 3 (Dark Horse)