#kounoa

So let's outline her situation: Menoa Bellucci supposedly came from the Kizuna!timeline and ended up in the 13+!timeline, having all her memories intact. So her reality is that she lost her partner at age 14 and had tried to retrieve the partnership again and again, culminating in not only obsessive tendencies, but also a saviour complex.

Her plan was then to track down "the original Chosen Children" with two-sided intentions; on one hand, there was the idea that, if anyone could undo/stop the separation process, it'd be the famous Chosen Children who had saved the world various times before. On the other hand, she had done her research properly - trying to get access to the full list of Chosen Children from Koushirou would enable her to trap their consciousness in a frozen realm, thus "saving" them from such a cruel fate.

Hoping to win the likes of Koushirou, Taichi and Yamato over, she had not expected to be met with such resistance; being told that what she did was wrong, that "not growing up" was not the solution, that their fate was not pre-determined. And even though she was fought, "defeated" - and also arrested afterwards -, she must have realized her faults. It wasn't so much a punishment, but a hopeful lesson. So it's not unlikely to assume that the words of those three men may have lingered in her memories.

We don't know how much time has passed between her arrest and her entering the 13+!timeline, whether she had been released and whether the passage of time had been the same in both timelines. All we know is that she had cut her long her short (which had been held together by the butterfly hairclip previously), that it's now 2013 in the 13+!timeline - and that she is working with Koushirou in his lab. Not only that - it's specifically stated that "Menoa contributed half of the startup capital and is essentially the co-owner, but it was Menoa who decided that Koushirou would remain the director", having him specifically thanking her for making everything possible.

After reading that, I had to pause for a moment. As linked above, I have that headcanon that Menoa had always been in touch with Koushirou, that she may have been the American friend he had always referred to - although he had not been aware that it was her for the longest time. Him opposing her in Kizuna may have shattered her view at first; it's been quite apparent that she had admired Koushirou, his achievements and intellect quite a bit and she may have hoped for him to see things the same way she did.

However, at the end of Kizuna, her eyes had been opened - and now, transported into another universe, she gets the chance to meet "another version" of him.

This is not company CEO "Izzy Izumi", neatly wearing suit and tie and an undercut - this is "Izumi Koushirou", trying to establish a research lab in a warehouse, hair grown out. However, he isn't any less remarkable and brilliant in her eyes - which is probably why she decides to "fund" him, build him up to enable him to be just as, if not more efficient than his self from the Kizuna timeline. She may even have told him about the distortion tracking goggles his other self made for Kizuna!Taichi - so she may have been the one who enabled him to make those for 13+!Taichi again. (Let's not forget that his "American friend" also funded Koushirou in Tri, so having this little parallel makes my headcanon feel even more valid. I'm also not sure if it was a fanon headcanon or actually implied that she and Miyako helped to design the lab uniform - it was only said that Miyako decorated the entrance area of the lab, as far as I remember.)

Kakudou constantly points out how well they work together, Menoa praises Koushirou regularly as they try to figure out her whereabouts - even going so far as to have her imply that his "talk-without-filter" tendencies are one of "his good points". And then there is this little moment where she observes him working together with Tentomon, smiling mellowly...

Even writing all of this out now cannot express how insane it is to me. This woman comes from a timeline in which partnerships between humans and Digimon can actually dissolve, where she lost her own partner. She had been opposed by someone she admired and his friends - who fought despite the risk of losing their own partners to save her instead. Now she's in a timeline where partnerships do not vanish. Where she meets other versions of these people who saved her - they still have their partners, Koushirou is still amazing in her eyes. And this is where she may have decided to repent for what she did - by literally cutting her hair, cutting old habits, using her intellect to ACTUALLY work together with others to achieve something good. Even if neither of them remembers her or what happened.

There is no malice, no sense of revenge - but fondness and, probably, the sense of hopefulness that Kizuna!Taichi, Kizuna!Yamato and, eventually, Kizuna!Koushirou had evoked in her. Without their words, without Koushirou's bluntness, his "talk-without-filter", she would not have ended up here.

Of course we didn't see the full extent of what she did - but it's heavily implied that she isn't doing things on her own anymore, not only by the way she works and theorizes with Koushirou; she appears to be on friendly terms with Miyako, even teaming up to prevent Koushirou from being insensitive towards Rui; her and Taichi appear to help improve each other's language skills - at least he is is praising her Japanese getting better and they may or may not be "drinking buddies" as well. Which... May have been something she had wanted to do with him all along - whether to apologize or whether she had felt some kind of kinship to him after all they talked about in the other timeline.

In general, the core between Koushirou, Menoa, Miyako + Taichi and Ken is a wholesome group that I did not have on my 2026 bingo card. I would positively die to see the "genius bug squad" interact more, and Ken and Miyako simply feel like the perfect candidates to form a bond with her. (The latter because we need smart girls sticking together and the former because... Trauma bonding.)

In sum, Menoa’s and Koushirou’s roles in Kizuna are pretty much defined as “being young geniuses on opposing ends/value systems”. Menoa is completely engulfed in her saviour complex, utterly ridden by grief and guilt over having caused her partner to dissolve, so her goal is to drag each and every Chosen Child into her fake reality realm, making them turn back into children to live in that state for eternity, without asking for their consent or contemplating whether what she does is right or wrong. Koushirou, on the other hand, is framed as selfless hero, sacrificing himself for the sake of enabling Taichi and Yamato to defeat Menoa rather than taking anything from anybody against their will - so much for the things the viewers are able to tell for themselves. But until we get to this point, there are a few other things to look at.

At the start of the movie, Menoa is the one who contacts Koushirou to ask him and the other Japanese Chosen Children for help in solving the cases of people all over the world losing their consciousnesses, as she specializes in Digimon research. Yamato looks to be rather suspicious of her coming to them to ask for help, after she claims that they had been rather famous, having saved the world countless times. And indeed, the movie frames it like they are local heroes - as opposed to Tri, in which they appeared to be a threat to society -, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Menoa figured out how to get in touch with Koushirou... Right?

But what if she had actually known him - while he himself had no idea that it was her...?

There are several versions of “Our War Game’s” sub floating around the internet - in the movie, Koushirou tells Taichi about a friend, who has provided him with analyzed information regarding the suspicious Digimon that appeared on the internet, growing quickly and having merged with several bugs. Depending on what sub you look at, said friend is from Los Angeles (or Russia, which appears to be a common translation error, thanks to @shihalyfie​ for pointing this out!). However: It is notable that he is referring to his friend as “she” (at least in this version of the sub, which may not be fully accurate, but for the sake of this headcanon, we’ll go with it):

And not only that... She seems to be impressively intelligent. Which rings several bells and reminds us of another redheaded genius:

The timeline doesn’t completely line up, since she, apparently, had met Morphomon when she was 9. She is 22 in Kizuna, thus she’s the same age as Taichi - so while that means she would have met her partner two years before Taichi and the others met theirs, it at least lines up with both her and Taichi being in grade school at the same time.

(On a more self induldent note, the fact that Taichi reacted as depicted above both times he is confronted with people interacting around him and Koushirou, who are supposedly much smarter than himself, maaaaay indicate a certain level of mirroring - if Menoa was involved in both instances.)

In addition to this little hint, Kizuna pulled another visual OWG parallel - after losing Morphomon, Menoa had attempted to gather her partner’s data to bring her back. 

And doesn’t that interface look eerily familiar...?

The English Dub of “Our War Game”, better known as “The Digimon Movie”, merged several movies together and changed the course of the story: In this, it was Willis (or Wallace in the Japanese original) who was framed to be the genius who had accidentally caused Diaboromon/Diablomon to appear in the internet as a virus. 

So... What if Menoa had done the same? What if she actually had been the one Koushirou was in touch with over the whole issue? What if their exchange had caused her to gather enough data, enough information, to use this exact interface to create her own Digimon later on, being inspired not only by Diablomon’s basis, but, probably, by everything she and Koushirou had been texting about throughout all these years - while Koushirou had been blissfully unaware of what she would end up doing?

What if... The fact that she refers to Koushirou as “genius boy” was because she had actually met him through the internet when he had still been just a boy himself?

What if that was the reason why she had hoped for him to see eye to eye with her? Her overall demeanour towards him is very relaxed, open - maybe even a bit playful and flirtatious. 

What if she had been convinced that he would be on her side and provide the help she requested - since she had been the one who helped him to defeat Diablomon in the past? Just imagine what they may have been theorizing about, all the exhanged ideas over the years, all the knowledge that she could have gathered to make all of this work - thanks to him. She knew he’d have a list of all the Chosen Children, she knew he’d have the resources, the infrastructure, the kindness to - hopefully, in her eyes - make everyone turn to a state of bliss and happiness, without pain or loss. Together with her.

And what if the fact that she could eventually overpower him, taking his consciousness, luring him into Neverland, was because he had eventually realized who she was... And had let his guard down, just for a few seconds?

I do believe it could have been interesting if he had become her second in command due to getting brainwashed - because we all know the others are pretty much helpless when he isn’t providing guidance from afar. And these two geniuses and their bug Digimon against the world might be a deadly combination, but... For now, this is just a headcanon. Especially because the timing might not fully add up in the end. But I would really love to see these two interact in some way in canon once again in the future.