AnimeChicago ✶ Anime, Manga, Japanese Pop Culture

Note: We are reading the WHOLE series that is 1 volume in English.

They Were 11「11人いる！」is a science fiction manga series from one of the most influential women of shoujo manga Moto Hagio 「萩尾望都」. Her best work tends to combine far out science fiction concepts with introspective human drama and melodrama dealing with themes of identity, gender, loss and love. There is also a pretty good anime adaption of this work done back in 1986.

Ten young space cadets are put onto a decommissioned spaceship as their final test. If they pass this test, their lifelong dreams of being valued people in their respective societies will come true. Their orders are to survive as long as they can with what they have. Once they arrive at the ship, they find that their crew has gained an eleventh member—and no one can remember the original lineup well enough to recognize which of them is the newcomer.
As the days pass, the eleven cadets must deal with their suspicions of each other as well as the sudden knowledge that the spaceship is in a decaying orbit around a star, which is causing the temperature on the ship to rise. With this rise in temperature, a sickness begins to spread among the crew as they work to stabilize their orbit and determine who among them is the spy.

Join us as we look at this classic series from one of the most acclaimed manga-ka of all time.

Celebrate AnimeChicago’s 19 years over dinner and drinks at River West’s Asian market and food court.