smellslikemountains | Prismatica

STATISTICS

Gonta

FULL NAME

About 39

AGE

???

BIRTHDAY

Jinba (Centaur)

RACE

Sanguis

MOONBLESSING

PERSONALITY

Brash. While Matsukaze was a patient man, Gonta is far more brash and quick to act on his feelings. This part of Gonta’s personality has been with him from a young age. His decision to go down to the human village to steal food, to ask Matsukaze later on to be everyone’s father at the orphan settlement, or to want to fight by his father’s side at the end were all him acting on his feelings in the moment. As an adult, his impulsive nature shows more in the way he chooses to follow Tanikaze down the mountain out of concern for his safety. And at Tanikaze’s first meeting with a human, Gonta’s moves impulsively to attack instead of waiting to see how things could turn out. He follows his instincts a lot. If he senses danger, he will be there to defend, if he feels uneasy, he moves away. He’s quick to anger as well, not letting Tanikaze explain his case when he finally declares that he wants to live in the human village.

When he needs to clear his head, he needs to be amidst nature, preferably with a tree to smack his head against. So, in times of trouble, that’s his impulse takes him to and where he finds the greatest comfort.

In contrast to that, his brash nature also shows in the way he’s quick to anger and to hold grudges. Even if he has only Tanikaze’s safety in mind, he lashes out in anger at him when he declares that he isn’t going home. His temper also makes it hard for Tanikaze, who is naturally curious, to open up to Gonta about his wishes to see more of the world. His anger has a strong effect on his daily life, especially among humans. Though he recognizes that the world has changed, it’s very difficult for him to let go of all the hardship his father had faced because of humankind.

It isn’t much of stretch then to imagine that if someone slights him or those he cares for, Gonta would be very easy to provoke.

Protective and Selfless. Gonta feels a deep sense of protectiveness towards those he cares for. Even with a father as majestic and powerful as Matsukaze, Gonta as a child wanted to do what he thought was best to make sure he wouldn’t go hungry. When he asks Matsukaze to be everyone’s father, it was out of his own concern for his fellow young jinba who have lost families to the war.

Later as an adult, Gonta spends his years by Kohibari and Koume’s side even when Kohibari and Koume’s children had already gone down the mountain to find their own futures. Not once does he have his own desire to see the world for himself, being more concerned about caring for the family he has remaining. It’s only when Yukikaze, the eldest son, returns that Gonta decides to go down the mountain-- but he does it under the pretense that he wanted to protect Tanikaze and bring him home. And when he does find him, the very first thing he does is get in between him and a bear and tells him to run without securing his own safety first.

Despite following his own impulses, Gonta was never the kind who put himself first before other people. When he recognizes why Konoha didn’t want to throw away the food to distract the wolves that attacked, he reassures her afterwards that the meaning of what she did wasn’t lost on him-- that the items they were bringing up to the human workers on the mountain were precious cargo.

The one time Gonta finally makes a decision for himself is when he decides to let Tanikaze go and return to the mountain. And even so, he was still holding himself back from one more desire, which wasn’t revealed until Konoha makes her big confession. When she does, Gonta just completely cracks, saying that he thought it would be impossible, that there was so much between them-- with her already having this happy life with humankind and him unable to live among them in the village. Her telling him that being with him was what she wanted was what it took for him to express his own desire.

A man who never says enough. Tanikaze yells “you never say enough!” in his distress at Gonta after assuming all this time that his mother had passed away and Gonta was going to live all alone in the mountains. It’s a recurring thing through all of Gonta’s arc in Part 2. For all the emotional distress he goes through, for all he feels and acts on, he doesn’t easily say what’s on his mind. The fear of humans the first time he is in the human village renders him silent. When he feels distressed at Konoha’s home, he just ups and runs. It takes a heart to heart for him to let out his feelings. He doesn’t seem like much of a romantic type either, more likely to show his affection through action rather than speech.

He’s never goes back on his word. Also said by Tanikaze to Sha Gozen when Sha-Go has doubts about Gonta’s usefulness in the workplace. When Gonta sets his mind to doing something, he does it. Whether it’s going after Tanikaze to bring him home, facing the human village to understand what it is Tanikaze wants to learn, or even living and working with the humans to fully see for himself what future his father had died for, he does it all earnestly. He moves forward without a doubt, putting his everything into it.

APPEARANCE

Gonta is a buff, very muscular mountain jinba whose years living in the mountains shows in the very build of his body. His dirty blond mane is short in front and long in the back, and he wears a black leather eyepatch over the skin he burned during his wartime childhood. His eyes are black. His skin is a light tan, to match the sandy shade of his horse half.

ABILITIES & SKILLS

JINBA STRENGTH

Gonta is far stronger than men with the same build as his human half. He’s able to wrestle off a pack of wolves or a single bear on his own.

MOUNTAIN HOOVES

Unlike jinba who have grown up on the farm or plains, Gonta is able to easily scale steep mountainous terrain without trouble.

ANCESTRAL WISDOM

because of the wisdom of his father passed on to him and to Kohibari who in turn taught them to him as well, Gonta is a jinba who is very in-tune with nature. He can tell from the look of the sky and the feeling of the ground that rain was coming or that rocks could slide. His intuition is so strong so that he’s able to make rescues in the nick of time, whether it’s from wild creatures or from natural disasters.

HISTORY

The world of JINBA is set in an alternate timeline where most things (including history) are the same as our world except for the existence of half-man half-horses (essentially centaurs) known as jinba. Gonta’s story is specifically from between the Warring States period (16th century) to the beginning of the Tokugawa period.

In ancient times, the jinba that dwelled in the mountains were considered mountain deities of good harvests, occasionally teaching humans about raising crops or aiding them when wild beasts attacked. However, as human civilization moved forward and war became a means of gaining power, humans recognized the power jinba could provide them and sought to harness them for their own gains.

It’s during this period while the wars were ongoing that Gonta’s story begins. By the time he was nine years old, jinba were widely caught and even bred for military steeds. Mountain breeds like Gonta and his father, Matsukaze, were widely sought after and nearly hunted to extinction. With war making resources scarce and the fear of humans limiting where jinba could safely explore, Gonta and Matsukaze were about to face a harsh winter with little food. Concerned for his father’s health, Gonta attempted to steal from a nearby human village. In the process, humans came out to capture him. In retaliation, Matsukaze appeared to fight off the humans to let Gonta escape. But because of Matsukaze’s reputation as the “Tiger of the Mountains”, the humans brought their best tamed jinba, Kohibari, to subdue him.

As a result, Gonta had to leave his father behind. On his way to safety, he passed through a battlefield. After the fighting had died down, he was found unconscious and partially burnt by a band of orphaned jinba led by Mikuni. Later on, Gonta was able to be reunited with his father again with the help of the skilled jinba who had captured him in the first place. However, this reunion didn’t last long. Because of a siege on the community of orphans, Matsukaze had to make a final stand to defend them. Once again, Gonta had to flee and leave his father behind on his words together with his aunt, Koume, and his now uncle-in-law, Kohibari.

It isn’t any surprise then that Gonta grows up with a deep fear of humankind. However, when Kohibari’s youngest son, Tanikaze, decides to travel down the mountain to learn about humans 30 years later, Gonta ends up following him under the pretense of bringing him home due to his concern for his safety.

Because of their many years in isolation, Gonta didn’t know that society had changed and the wars had come to a close. In the human village he, Tanikaze, and Mikuni (who they found surprisingly alive after that siege), they see that jinba and humans were now living and working side by side. It’s a struggle for Gonta who puts on a brave face but is haunted by the memories he has of what his father had gone through because of humans. However, for the sake of Tanikaze, Gonta steels himself to learn more about this new era. It’s an enormous task for Gonta, who finds it very difficult to forgive the humans for what they had done. It takes Mikuni reminding Gonta of what kind of jinba Matsukaze was to help him through his feelings and to strengthen his resolve to learn more about the new post-war society.

As part of this time learning about how times have changed, Gonta and Mikuni were tasked to work in the lumber industry, where they meet Konoha, the foreman. As she was born during the tail end of the war and was adopted by human parents who had lost their biological children, Konoha offers the two a very unique perspective that contrasts against the world they grew up in. This affects Gonta the most as all his life he had been frightened by humans to the point that the very sight of them triggers a fight or flight kind of response.

But the real turning point in Gonta’s story happens when he finds himself laughing in Konoha’s house, forgetting about his resentment for a while and actually living in the present. But he soon darts off, feeling conflicted about his feelings towards humans and the current times. Especially as Konoha explicitly expresses that she wanted other jinba to understand that there were humans that wanted to work amicably beside them. Through talking with Konoha, Gonta realizes that his resentment was born from a fear of forgetting the sacrifice of his father. That if he forgave, he’d in turn forget about his father. With a cleared mind and a stronger resolve, he decides to see his work with the humans until the end.

Eventually, towards the end of his work, Gonta faces one last obstacle when a rock falls and crushes Tanikaze’s leg. For ordinary horses or a fully grown mountain jinba such as Gonta, that kind of injury could have meant the end of one’s life. However, because of the humans in the village and their ability to create solutions, Gonta finally sees the future his father had wanted him to see. Ultimately, Gonta decides that his place is in the mountains. Konoha and her family overhear this conversation and she makes the bold decision to confess to him. Gonta in return confesses his feelings back-- and together, they go up to the mountains as husband and wife.

And it’s during this journey that Gonta is whisked away to the Iris Moon.

Prismatica | INFO