They Were Eleven (11人いる！) is a Japanese science fiction manga series written and illustrated by Moto Hagio. It was serialized in three issues of Shogakukan's Bessatsu Shōjo Comic magazine in 1975. The following year, it won the 21st Shogakukan Manga Award in the combined Shōjo manga and Shōnen manga category. The series has inspired a live-action television film, an anime film, multiple stage plays, and an audio drama CD. It also inspired a sequel manga series, Zoku Jūichinin Iru! Higashi no Chihei, Nishi no Towa (続・11人いる！東の地平・西の永遠), serialized in Bessatsu Shōjo Comic magazine from 1976 to 1977. They Were Eleven was originally licensed in English by Viz Media in floppy comics format in 1995, and published in the manga anthology Four Shōjo Stories in 1996. The series and its sequel have been licensed by Denpa for a new English-language release in 2022. The anime film was originally licensed in English by Central Park Media, but it was discontinued in 2004.
Story
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.