The Ōsugi family of Hannō – Jūichirō, his wife Iyoko, and children Kazuo and Akiko — believe themselves to be ordinary, until each member witnesses a UFO flying by and recalls their existence on another planet.
They write letters to Khrushchev, tour across Japan to speak about world peace and establish an organization, the Universal Friendship Association, which attracts attention from both other extraterrestrials on Earth and from the police, who suspect that the family is secretly communist.
Among those extraterrestrials are Haguro, Kurita, and Sone, who seek the destruction of humanity, and Takemiya Kaoru, a Venusian who falls in love with Akiko.
[2] Bryan Karetnyk for the Financial Times praised the humour, pacing, and "scenes of intense beauty" of the novel and Dodd's translation; he commented "Mishima blends the sublime with the ridiculous in provocative and surprising ways".
[2] Alexander Lee of The Critic gave a mixed review, commenting that Beautiful Star seemed "little more than a stilted piece of science fiction...pretty humdrum stuff" and called the characters "tweedy" and the dialogue "leaden"; however, he called the novel "poignant" and praised Dodd's translation.