linkspooky:

It seems to me that there are a lot of characters with promise that Ishida just decides to sit on, and the Uta, Yomo and Itori trio has always been a prime example for this. They really are what you might call “Heroes of another story” each of them characters with potential for a lot of depth that you can tell the author put a lot of effort into developing, but also the author not willing to show us this. A lot of Yomo’s character development (or at least the revealing of his character, Yomo’s one of those characters where most of his development happened before the beginning of the story and thus we meet him when he’s completed his arc) was only revealed to us at the end of og tg, and then just now in the Cochlea arc. 

I guess I can understand Ishida’s reasoning for this. Character balance is a delicate thing, and he probably doesn’t want Uta, Yomo and Itori to overshadow the main characters especially since they’re only tangentially related through them.

Itori had a lot of importance in the og tg though, she was the one who first gave us a detailed explanation of one eyed ghouls, introduced us to the gourmet club, and then later it was in her bar that Kaneki learned who the one eyed king might be. 

There’s almost no mentioned reason for why exactly Itori would disappear between then and Re: Perhaps because Goat has made enemies of the clowns now, a Kaneki with his memories recovered doesn’t have a real reason to seek her out. There’s also another information agent that was introduced in Re, that is specifically on the side of Goat and much more trustworthy than Itori would be. Perhaps the reason why she hasn’t reappeared is because she hasn’t been needed in her previously established role yet. 

Itori is definitely an important character still though, even if she might not be tangentially related to the main Kaneki plot at the moment it still would make sense for her to be among the clowns main attack force like Nico, Uta, and Donato all were. 

My only guess as to why she’s not is she might be yet another sun arc surprise that’s brewing. As to what she could reveal, being an information broker she might be the one to finally break what the clown’s connection to the Washuu is, and being somebody whose known Uta since their teens she might be the insight as to what his deal is. There’s a lot of exposition yet to be filled out, so you can see where an information broker would come in handy. 

That’s all just speculation though, to me it’s kind of a waste that Ishida lets characters disappear like this offscreen. One throwaway line is really all we need to know what Itori is up to. Hakatori and Shikorae are also characters that could be super relevant right now, especially with Hakatori’s connection to Amon and Shikorae’s to scarecrow (possibly) and the clowns but who knows when they’ll show up again.