"Forgive and forget."
Herz aus Stern (English: Heart of Star) is the 2020 debut novel by German YouTuber and author Nino Kerl. It describes the fairytale of a seven-year old girl, Su, that joins an intergalactic pirate crew by accident and goes on an adventurous trip with them. Beyond the shallow kid's tale surface the book is full of mythology references, predominantly from Japanese and Greek mythology - justified, as the author's Youtube channel is about Japanese pop culture.This novel was not translated to English yet. In this main page, the names of the characters are kept in their original German names, or loan translated if possible.This novel provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: It is never explained what NekoNeko needed Su's presumed jewelry for - except for indicating she's a pirate.
- The Amusement Park on Cowdaiba is heavily hinted at, but ultimately the crew never visits it.
- Adults Are Useless: In more than half of all conflicts, it's the seven-year old Su that comes up with the plans and solutions, while a whole bunch of experienced adult pirates can only commend her cleverness.
- After the End: The planet of Cowdaiba was completely destroyed in a prehistorical war. For the past centuries, a rebuild project has been going on.
- All There in the Manual: The single sections in a chapter are regularly disjointed by an in-depth explanation of the world, its people, or culture.
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Hatschi owns a magical staff that can turn possessed people back to normal.
- Anachronism Stew: The novel is essentially Greek and Japanese mythology interwoven - and set in space.
- Apocalypse How: The Milkbeard Pirates try to prevent a Class X-3 galactical scale annihilation, caused by the death of stars.
- Arc Words: Plenty, and they are repeated on every other page at least.
- "Forgive and forget" ("I'm sorry" or "do not worry")
- "White days and golden nights!" (The usual greeting)
- "Thanks be to Hera, and thanks to you!" (The usual way of saying thank you).
- Artistic License – Physics: The time in space is dilated and significantly slower than the time on earth. In reality, it would work the opposite - the time is moving slower in fast-moving objects, according to Einstein's Special relativity theorem.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Milk Beard crew is ambushed by a giant 2space whale.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: NekoNeko didn't spend a second without snarking to Hatschi, but when the latter Is mortally wounded by Qlipot, she is horrified.
- Big Bad: Qlipot, the leader of the Yakowza and archenemy of the galaxy.
- Big Eater: There is never a long period of time before Hatschi complains about being hungry.
- Bookend: The plot kicks off with Su leaving her home to join the pirate crew. It ends with her coming home.
- Caught in the Bad Part of Town: Subverted - the pirates end up in the slums of Cowdaiba, but it becomes apparent quickly that it's not as bad there as it looks.
- Central Theme: Milk. The plot is set in the Milky Way (which is actually made of milk), the main god is Hera, seven cow gods guard the universe, most described food are pastries with milk, and drinking from holy milk gives you divine powers. Also on a figurative scale, as many characters have family issues.
- Creepy Child: In Vanilland, the Milkbeard pirates encounter three children with a strange mark on their forehead, which causes them to be possessed and limp. The Nightbringer, Qlipot's dragon turns out to be possessed with the same symbol.
- Dark and Troubled Past: NekoNeko is revealed to have this. She grew up in an orphanage with an abusive foster mother and snitching foster siblings until her Only Friend gets killed by one of them.
- Deus ex Machina: Subverted. When all hope seems gone, The Milk beard pirates are seemingly saved by the Zodiac fleet coming out of nowhere. However, the fleet is destroyed by Qlipot in mere seconds.
- Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: Anubis tells everyone the ingenuity of his punny restaurant name - sometimes in quick succession.
- Disappeared Dad: Su's father left the family when she was young, and barely cares about her anymore.
- Disney Death: Played straight with Queen Shiro, who is declared dead for real, but revived by the tears of her daughter one page later.
- The Dragon: The Nightbringer, who swallows the lights of the stars. Later revealed to be Aison's daughter Yoru.
- Eldritch Abomination: Qlipot in his final form, as shown in the attached art.
- Everybody Hates Hades: Played for laughs; it's Anubis himself who expresses his deep dislike for Hades (and all other death gods).
- Expy: Many, as the author heavily drew inspiration from real-life folklore and tales. The clearest example is Aison, to Iason from the Argonauts. In the end, the entire arc is an expy to the Argonaut tale.
- Fairy Tale Episode: Exploited by Lovelock. The troops of Qlipot tried to destroy all knowledge about the golden heart, but didn't bat an eye on children's stories - they still contain the truth.
- Family of Choice: Moreso than for the other crew members, the Milkbeard Pirates are that for NekoNeko.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: It's described surprisingly graphically when Qlipot slits Q-Ma's throat. Granted, he's a robot, but it's mildly disturbing nonetheless.
- Female Feline, Male Mutt: Hatschi the dog is male, and NekoNeko the cat is female.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Tonkin the fisherman is only around for chapters 7 and 8 and is absent afterward.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In the final chapter of the book, Qlipot succeeds in drinking from the Golden Goblet and receives pure power from the gods. However, because he cannot deal with the good power in the milk, it destroys him from the inside.
- Ironic Allergy: Nanuk (Hatschi) is allergic to grass - which is not a good feature when you live on a planet where everyone works in agriculture to feed a divine cow.
- Just Eat Him: The ship and the entire Milk Beard crew are swallowed whole by the Yakowza ship, the aptly named Moby Dick.
- King of All Cosmos: The king and queen of the Milky Way, who seem to have mythological power too. The latter's slumber is enabling the galaxy to die.
- Level Ate: The Milky Way, which is quite literally made of milk. Also, Vanilland, which is made of vanilla.
- MacGuffin: The Golden Goblet, which Qlipot uses to drink from the milk fountain and become a literal god.
- Meaningful Name: Each and every single one of them, as the author explained in the postscript.
- Aison Jason Milkbeard: Is named after the protagonist and his father of the Argonaut tale. He even steers a ship called "Argo" later.
- Hatschi/Nanuk: Hatschi is the German word for the sneeze sound ("Achoo!") and also sounds like the name of a famous Akita dog, Hachiko. "Nanuk" is "polar bear" in an Eskimo-Aleut language.
- NekoNeko Nebulahome: Neko translates to "cat" in Japanese. Nebulahome (Nebelheim in German) points to Niflheim, the hell of old Germanic mythology.
- Q-Ma: The robot is pronounced "Kuma", which is "bear" in Japanese.
- Su: Her name is revealed to be an abbreviation for Sutā, which is "star" (in the sense of a movie star) in Japanese.
- The seven cow planets are named after seven quarters of Tokyo. Cowdaiba is named after Odaiba, which is an artificial island - just as Cowdaiba is an artificial planet.
- Mixed Animal Species Team: The Milkbeard pirates consist of a lion, a cat, and a dog, as well as a robot polar bear - and a human girl.
- Mundane Utility: When one of Anubis's guests forgot his Death Note in the restaurant, it would have almost ended up being used as a guestbook...
- Parental Substitute: Aison for Su. Turns out to be pretty ironic later, when it is revealed that Aison was just a bad of a parent for his real daughter Yoru as Su's mother is for her.
- Plot Parallel: Su is growing up without the love of her parents and joins a pirate crew to defy them, just as NekoNeko did. And Aison's daughter Yoru has the same upbringing, but she defies her parents by joining the Big Bad instead, which kicks of the entire plot.
- Punny Name:
- The seven cow planets are named after quarters of Tokyo - each with "cow" somewhere in the name: Shicowya (Shibuya), Shinjucow (Shinjuku), Harajucow (Harajuku), Acowhabara (Akihabara), Coweno (Ueno), Ikebucowro (Ikebukuro) and Cowdaiba (Odaiba).
- Anubis's restaurant is called Anubiss, a pun on his name and the German word Imbiss (takeaway restaurant). He is never short on explaining the joke.
- Red Herring: From the first chapter, the quince beansnote and the Get-Courage-Dustnote are introduced like they will become very important later. They will not - because the crew forgot to buy supplies.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The dream god Morpheus exclusively speaks in rhymes.
- Rule of Three: The pirates save three possessed children and receive three magical feathers as a reward for that. They are used to overcoming three challenges on their journey.
- Shout-Out: The research facility on Cowdaiba is called Temple Of Time. The author explicitly mentioned that this is derived from the linked video game.
- Supreme Chef: Q-Ma, to the point that even literal gods are surprised about the food quality.
- Tagalong Kid: Su just decides to join the Milkbeard Pirates for no other apparent reason than to have fun.
- Talking Animal: All of them talk. Hatschi more than other animals.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The pirate crew never does anything more unlawful than escaping a traffic jam. Justified, as the whole pirate crew was just a disguise.
- Time Dilation: One day in space equals two minutes on earth, so Su can stay half a year in space before the dawn of the next day happens on earth.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Qlipot about Yoru, after she swallowed the light of the golden heart
- You Remind Me of X: It is implied that the main reason why NekoNeko agreed upon taking Su with her is that her troubles reminded her of her own dark past.
