The Blast Furnace Mystery

The Blast Furnace Mystery ("Yōkōro no kaijin" 溶鉱炉の怪人) - originally titled "Phantom of the Blast Furnace" - is a chapter of the Astro Boy manga which originally ran in the expanded summer edition of Shonen magazine in August 1961.

Plot Summary
Astro Boy catches a man who insisted he isn't a bad guy, but Inspector Tawashi expressed sarcastic skepticism. On his way out of the police station, a young police detective requested Astro to help him investigate a case regarding a series of murders of young men. The detective suspected his own father since he tailed him in the park the other night carrying what appeared to be a pair of young corpses to the local steel factory where he saw him dispose of them inside the blast furnace. But when they confront him, he is revealed to not be the murderer. The truth is that he and his son are robots and the corpses were really former empty robot body shells. The father pretended to be a human and had built himself a robot baby. Every month he transplanted his son electronic brain into a new body to make it look like he grew as a human. He explained to them that he wanted his son to believe they were humans because robots are despised by many people. He intended to reveal the truth when he turned twenty-five human years and then disappear leaving his own electronic brain behind to remember him by. He pulled his brain out, threw it on the floor, said good-bye and hurled himself into the blast furnace before Astro can stop him. The son mourned over his father's brain asking forgiveness for accusing him wrongfully. When the detective called police headquarters to report his mistake in the case, they tell him that it's solved as the man Astro had caught earlier was the actual killer all along. The detective admiringly told Astro that he will strive to be as wonderful a robot as he is.

Characters

 * Astro Boy
 * Inspector Tawashi

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


 * Astro Boy, Volume 9 (Kodansha)
 * Astro Boy, Volume 11 (Dark Horse)