Talk:Ken Kaneki/@comment-3173617-20151008194053/@comment-25047329-20151009005615

Hide is a character that gets brought up an awful lot because he was never confirmed as dead. According to CCG records, he's "MIA". The CCG had the entire 20th ward on lock-down and covered both above and below ground to ensure that no ghoul escaped and was in charge of clean-up afterwards. There being no trace of Hide, to the point that the CCG doesn't even officially mark him is dead (no torn clothes, body parts, blood, etc. Even Amon left an arm.), is highly suspect. Even Amon and Seidou, two trained investigators, were assumed dead over a rookie who was part of intel.

There's also a lot of speculation around him because he's a pretty mysterious guy. He never got a bio, we never learned anything about his family, we didn't see his inner thoughts much, the copy of "The Hangman's MacGuffin" Sasaki got for Christmas was Hide's, and he's surprisingly lonely despite his outgoing deposition and is near obsessed with Kaneki. His devotion goes way above and beyond being a best bro and we're never given an explanation for it aside from "he's just Kaneki's best friend".

There probably wouldn't be much thought put behind him if it was clear that he was just some random randy, but there are too many mysteries surrounding him and he was portrayed as being very important to Kaneki; someone that Kaneki considered his "most important person", claimed to have saved him multiple times, and compared to his own heartbeat.

It'd feel pretty unjust to reduce his role to shock value imo.