Digi Dynamic Shipping Game
Send me two names among the following 12 13 and I’ll write a short analysis post about them:
Taichi Yagami | Yamato Ishida | Sora Takenouchi | Koushirou Izumi | Mimi Tachikawa | Jyou Kidou | Takeru Takaishi | Hikari Yagami | Daisuke Motomiya | Miyako Inoue | Iori Hida | Ken Ichijouji | Meiko Mochizuki
Disclaimer: I won’t claim this to be a conclusive/definitive analysis of all of the ship’s aspects. Ship dynamics vary depending on which parts of the series/timeline or media types you are looking at. So this is going to be my personal take on it and just a personal interpretation of how I perceive them.
Whether canon provides input on them or not:
When looking at Meiko's interaction partners in Tri, Koushirou is proooobably not the first person who comes to mind; after Jyou, he may share the least amount of screen time with her. And at pure face value, the interactions he does have with her are mostly indirect - and at first glance, not painted in the best light either. They have that kind of dynamic you definitely have to speculate about more to get to the bottom of it - and interestingly enough, once you do, you may discover that they actually have a few things in common. But we'll get to that.
First things first - as mentioned, they mostly are not seen talking to each other, but rather have a third party person to talk through: Mimi. From a shipping perspective, that is both, an interesting parallel and, at the same time, incredibly complicated. Why? On one hand, because you can see/interpret both Koushirou and Meiko as potential love interests for Mimi (with one of them canonically crushing on her and the other OBVIOUSLY opening up through her encouragement, care and emotional/physical affection). On the other hand... Things do not really get very far in text.
Their main interaction point throughout the first few movies consists of Koushirou trying to figure out what causes the distortions corrupting the Digimon - and by doing so, he ends up interrogating Meiko in a very uncomfortable and unfortunate moment, that causes Mimi to snap at him. She says that he's being insensitive, he says they don't have time to focus on "trivial things", completely overlooking her emotional distress in order to fix things as quickly as possible. As mentioned, not the best foundation for any kind of relationship, as Meiko is completely overwhelmed with her partner being corrupted - while Koushirou is desperately trying to stop the cause from spreading even further. And she is aware of his good intentions there - because Taichi explains to her that Koushirou means to investigate the whole thing "with his entire heart" and that that's "all he can do", indirectly asking her to not be mad at him for being "like that". This even leads to her contemplating to apologize to him. Mimi insists that she doesn't have to - and we actually never see the end of that conflict, just the glimpse of hope that Sora's words, "He'll figure it out", will eventually lead to good things...
The next notable interaction is by the very end of Tri - as seen above -, where he entrusts her with his beloved laptop to find out the key to locked-away data, a password only she is capable of knowing, to eventually and actually fix everything in the end.
So what does that tell the viewer? They may not have a lot of significant interpersonal interaction - but subtext indicates that Koushirou strongly believes in Meiko being able to be the key, to find the answers to their problems. He did so by interrogating her, he did so by handing her his laptop - and that is a very familiar pattern.
Not trying to go too much into detail here, but one of my personal favourite headcanons is that, Meiko is what Koushirou COULD have become if he hadn't been as lucky as he was; to be raised by loving parents and getting validated by them upon reconciling; to befriend seven (and eventual eleven) kids and their personal soulmates to figure himself out, friends that ALSO believed in him and his strengths; to be enabled by his best friend to come to Summer camp and come out of his shell in the first place - and to solve a card riddle that would solve a very significant issue. Meiko is incredibly insecure, she had been on her own for a very long time, her low self-esteem goes so far as to have her ask why she was even there in the first place - she visibly needs someone loud and vocal like Mimi to show her how capable she is, just like Koushirou needed Taichi and Tentomon in the same manner. And this may be a huge stretch, because other characters (such as Taichi, Mimi, Sora, Hikari and Takeru) have been WAY more direct and vocal about encouraging her verbally - but Koushirou (who absolutely CAN suffer from severe self-esteem issues as well once he doesn't consider himself "useful") may have passed his own personal torch here in a more subtle, non-verbal way.
Long story short - there is not exactly nothing, but y'all have a lot of guessing work and subtext interpretation to do here.
Whether I think why and how they’d work:
As mentioned above, there are some very subtle similarities that may or may not help them to bond with each other. First of all, it shall not be underestimated that they both have a significant connection with each Mimi and Taichi - and especially the former case may be very enthusiastic to MAKE them spend more time with each other. (Abridged!Mimi may even go so far as to say "I'll make my two nerds have a good time, ha!") I really do believe that Mimi herself could be a great starting point AND topic for them to bond over. "She really is like that, isn't she?", in a gentle, lighthearted way. Because they may have issues opening up fully for some time, due to their bad experiences with interpersonal interaction - but I would argue that they're both also the type that just has to get over that point with each other ONCE and then don't have any issues afterwards anymore. They just need a "starting point". Taichi may actually be a good starting point as well, because both of them may have anecdotes (and their mentioned similarities) to share with each other fondly. Again, there are a lot of self-worth issues they need to overcome first, but once they do, I could imagine them being very soft (and potentially rambly).
(I also have the headcanon that Koushirou likes cats - not only should he have grown up interacting with Hikari and Miko a lot, but his own partner, supposedly a ladybug, has very cat-like tendencies and THAT absolutely should be a bonding topic too!)
Whether I’d prefer them as platonic or romantic ship:
I may argue that, romantically, they MIGHT actually both be not straight-forward enough to get anywhere for a long time and due to the lack of canon interactions, I can only work off the formerly mentioned headcanons... So it may take Mimi and an OT3 setting for things to work out properly. Because hey, with Mimi being the driving force connecting and intertwining them, things could escalate very quickly (because, as mentioned, they're both enchanted by her and have panicked over her being physical with them, they share that fondness for her, so why not channel that energy into a mutual bond as well? And again, the same could apply to Taichi too, because he brought BOTH of them out of their shell to some degree and was VERY protective of them at some point, but I digress). Without that driving force, I'd rather see them as platonic. They're both very supportive (and nerdy) people in their own ways, but nothing too deep on the romantic end.