Jinta's the protagonist of the series. He wasn't always the withdrawn, isolated guy we see now—he used to be the cheerful, take-charge leader of his friend group, the Super Peace Busters. But everything changed after an accident that killed one of his closest friends, Menma. The guilt hit hard because his last interaction with her had been thoughtless; when Naruko teased him about having feelings for Menma, he snapped back with something cruel about her appearance. He'd meant to apologize the next day, but she drowned that same night, and he never got the chance.
Unable to move past it, Jinta fell into depression and eventually became a full-blown hikikomori—basically a shut-in who barely leaves home. He lives with his father and technically enrolls at the same high school as Naruko, but he hasn't actually been attending. The weight of unresolved guilt has pretty much shaped everything about who he is now.
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