Web Video / Text Theater

Text Theater (LINE劇場, LINE Gekijou, lit. "LINE Theater" in Japanese) is a Web Video series where stories are played out in text conversations.

The videos cover various topics such as marriages and divorce, stalking, bullying and so on. The English channel can be accessed here. The original Japanese channel can be accessed here.

Compare to similar channels Apple Texts and Viral Texts.

Text Theater contains examples of:

• A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Carl won 3 million dollars and left his wife Megan and remarried with a younger woman. However Carl's new wife divorced him after she caught him cheating on her and he was forced to pay 1 million dollars in compensation and she withdrew the rest, leaving Carl broke. Carl became so desperate to pay his debts that he tried to rob a convenience store but was caught by the police.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Occasionally, some translation errors will show up in the videos — such as referring to an apartment unit as a "room", "lunch box" being used to refer to the food itself rather than the package, or people getting compensation from the antagonist being referred to as "alimony" even though the antagonist isn't a spouse.
• Blunt "Yes": Antagonist: Would you like me to sign and send in these divorce papers? / Protagonist: Why, yes, that would be my pleasure! Thank you so much for freeing me from you! / Antagonist: Huh?
  • Joan delivers a few of them to Doris, her mother-in-law, after the latter stranded the former on a mountain on the way to a ski resort — and then, subsequently, Doris and the rest of the family get in a major car accident. (Doris: Do you not feel any form of sympathy for me right now after all of this? / Joan: I don't actually.)
• Bullying the Disabled:
  • Kurt divorced Skylar for the accident that he was responsible for in the first place. To rub salt into the wound, he contacts her again in two years and invites her to the wedding simply to get more laughs at her expense. Unfortunately for Kurt, his bride leaves him and and he gets fired from his job — as Skylar ended up marrying a head doctor who he worked under.
  • Jasmine making it clear that Faith was not invited to the former wedding on account of being in a wheelchair was bad enough from the get-go. She also threatened Faith not to tell her husband (Jasmin's brother) about how Jasmine was treating her, suggesting that she knew her brother would disapprove. However, on the day of the wedding, Jasmine knocked down Faith and ruined her wheelchair in the process - and, somehow, she maintains that Faith (and not Jasmine herself) was the one responsible for ruining her special day.
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: When the antagonist is neither a cheating spouse nor after money, then they often fall into this. They torment the protagonist simply for the fun of it and nothing else.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Many episodes have the antagonist physically assault the protagonist for petty reasons. This would often get them into trouble with the law or otherwise karma gets them. More often than not, this includes someone being assaulted by the antagonist for daring to attend the latter's wedding (usually having been invited by the other wedding partner) despite being deemed as "ugly" or "lowly".
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Dean and his sister Brittany have been putting Yolanda down for having quit her job to be a housewife and take care of their mother, something they asked her to do in the first place!
• Easily Forgiven: Hailey's husband seemed all too quick to throw their marriage away. Yet, she seemed to accept his apology with very little reservation (with just a "don't do it again" admonition).
• Entitled Bastard: Many an antagonist will fall into this. Often times, they will refuse to apologize for their mistreatment of the protagonist — and demand that the protagonist helps them. When an apology is offered, then they will demand to be forgiven. After a divorce has been initiated either by the spouse or an in-law (usually through forgery, in the latter case), the spouse or in-law will demand that the protagonist return to them. "I'm letting you come back. You should be grateful."
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Fay had difficulty believing that Craig was a CEO due to him being on a first-name basis with all of his employees and his overall approachable style. While far from being the only antagonist to mistreat someone due to their perceived "lowly" position, only for it to turn out to be someone much more important — this is one of the few instances where it's explicitly spelled out in conversation that pouring coffee on anyone is unacceptable behaviour. Nonetheless, Fay maintains that the only thing she did wrong was to mistakenly spill coffee on the "wrong" person — and not the fact that she spilled coffee on anyone at all.
• Exact Words:
  • Brett crashed Mark's car when he was drinking and driving. Brett threatened to fire Mark if he ever told the company. Mark then decided to tell the police instead. Brett begged him not to tell the police but Mark points out that he was not supposed to tell the company and didn't say anything about telling the police.
  • Morgan insists that a customer cannot cancel her deceased mother's cellphone subscription unless her mother is present. So the customer does just that... by bringing in a casket! Ultimately subverted, as her mother was cremated - but it did allow for others to see just what kind of person Morgan is!
• Gender Flip: This will periodically show up with certain versions of stories. For example: "My fiancé's ex punched me in the face on the day of our wedding while my fiancé laughed." In both cases, the puncher and the punchee are the same gender.
• Gold Digger: Melanie only wants to marry Todd for his money and she also plans to be together with her lover Harold after their wedding. Unfortunately for Melanie, Todd breaks up with her and cancels the wedding because Harold punched him in the face in the middle of wedding.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: This often combined with Never My Fault when this happens to the antagonist. Particularly egregious cases are when they blame the protagonist for allowing someone else (often someone that the antagonist actually cares about) to fall victim to their cruel plans when the protagonist was "supposed to" be the intended victim. Essentially: "How dare you let someone that I care about be the victim when you were supposed to be the victim? It's all your fault for not being the victim like I intended for you to be!"
• Hypocrite: Bailey kept making fun of Marion's sister for being jobless even though Bailey is a housewife and doesn't do much around the house.
• I Have No Son!: Liam's father disowned him after he found out that Liam was waiting for him to die so he can inherit his company.
• It's All About Me: Lyn not only is distinctively callous about Sara's loss of her mother, but she demands for Sara and her husband to show up for her wedding or else pay her $10,000. As it turns out... her brother (Sara's husband), her parents, and even her husband shun her - and she has to pay the cancellation fee by herself.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Kurt's bride apparently dumped him on their wedding date solely due to him being fired and unemployed, rather than out of any disgust over learning about how he treated his disabled ex-wife.
• Lazy Bum: Susan lounged around Jackie's home after her divorce and refused to do anything around the house. She demanded that Jackie continue working even after having a child even asking her to get an abortion.
• Mean Boss: Tom seems to really have it in for Evan, despite him being one of the only two competent workers in the department — due to him putting in significant overtime to make thing everything runs smoothly. After Evan ends up in the hospital due to overwork, Tom fires him. Then, a few days later, he demands that Evan returns to work — and his attitude comes off sounding a lot like a jilted ex-spouse who is apoplectic that Evan found a new job so quickly. The kicker is that Tom was the one slacking off on his computer during work hours.
• Miles Gloriosus: Frank Stein used the fact that his father was in a gang to intimidate a woman into letting him park at her space for free. When he went to her house to collect $10,000 that she offered for parking, he ran into the bathroom after seeing some scary men, and kept apologizing to her and admitted he was lying about his father being in a gang.
• Moral Myopia:
  • This is a common defense after being called out for assaulting someone. To paraphrase: "I never would've assaulted you had I known that you were an important person instead of a lowly being not even deserving of basic human rights. It was all a misunderstanding, so you have to forgive me!"
  • The video where Fay spills toilet water on her sister-in-law Gianna for being a "low-life janitor" spells this trope out nicely, while Fay continues Dramatically Missing the Point. Gianna makes it clear that she is definitely not a Mean Boss by defending her employees from Fay's insults.
  • This also frequently comes up in situations concerning abusive parents, in-laws, bosses, or coworkers: "It's okay for me to insult you, call you every degrading name in the book, and order you around — but if you dare to even defend yourself against me, then you are being very rude and disrespectful... And That's Terrible!!"
• Never My Fault: Morgan refuses to accept that the reason why a customer brought a casket into the store is because she insisted that she couldn't cancel a cellphone subscription without her mother present. So, the customer did exactly what she asked for: bring her mother's casket to the store. Actually, she didn't really (as her mother was cremated) — but she did it to teach Morgan a lesson. Sadly, Morgan maintained her sense of lacking any responsibility on the matter - but, fortunately, she did get reprimanded by her boss and then fired for it... and then her actions went viral on the internet!
• Obnoxious In-Laws: This is a common theme for the stories, most often involving the mother-in-law treating their daughter-in-law like a slave. However, if this trope gets name-dropped towards the beginning of the story (usually by the antagonist), then expect this trope to not be in play for that particular story. Common inversions also occur, where the mother-in-law is actually a decent person contrary to the spouse — and ends up even disowning their child who is the protagonist's spouse. While gender inversions of the obnoxious mother-in-law trope does sometimes occur, they are not nearly as common.
• Only Cares About Inheritance: Ella's mother-in-law Charlotte shows excitement when she learns that Ella's father is dying, as he's a rich man and she assumes that Ella will give her some of the inheritance. At the funeral, Charlotte cheers and laughs during Ella's father's funeral because she assumes that Ella will share the inheritance, even going on a shopping spree and buying a house. Unfortunately for Charlotte, Ella donated it all to charity, meaning that Charlotte is stuck with a bunch of debt.
• Parking Payback: Frank Stein kept parking in a woman's parking space without her permission and tried to use the fact that his father is part of a gang to intimidate her. When she warned him to stop, Frank punched her in the face. She told her father and his gang and even contacted his college. As a result, the job offer he had after college was rescinded and he was forced to quit college.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Leonard took Marcus's book and published it as his own even though all he did was add illustrations to it. Marcus fell into a deep depression after that but he decided to write another book about it and people soon found out about Leonard's plagiarism even though Marcus didn't mention any details about it.
• Plot Allergy: Miranda didn't believe that her daughter-in-law, Melanie has a wheat allergy despite her explaining to her many times that she has. Miranda fed Melanie some bread with wheat on it when John wasn't looking leading her to go into a coma. As a result, John disowned Miranda and kicked her out of the house.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Inverted. Characters in text message conversations will often stammer, be interrupted, or be unable to get a word in edgewise — all of which are far more common in vocal speech than in text message communication, which should be averted by the software mechanics. Then there are the many times when characters will go "huh" or "what".
• Revenge Porn Blackmail: Katy is Jane's old high school bully who's just as bad as an adult. Katy has nude photos of Jane on her phone from high school, which she threatens to release if Jane doesn't do Katy's bidding. Katy decides to upload the photos when she gets fired thanks to Jane reporting her to the manager (who's also Jane's brother), but when she learns that the manager is about to sue her, she deletes them (which doesn't help as Katy picked on Jane in many other ways and her brother refuses to let her get away).
• Sarcasm-Blind: Lisa fails to pick up on her sister-in-law's sarcasm when the latter sarcastically replies to her insults.
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up:
  • Katy bullied Jane in high school and continued her torment well into their adult years and constantly threatened to upload Jane's embarrassing photos. Katy tried to impress Jane's brother with a watch stolen from Jane but he was not impressed, and he fired her from his company.
  • David bullied Mike in school and when they met at a reunion, David decided to try to enslave Mike. When Mike helped David's pregnant wife climb some stairs, he threatened to kick his butt and pushed him down the stairs. However Mike reported David to his work and was fired from his company.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
  • Liam disregarded his boss and had a bad attitude towards other employees and sales representatives just because he is the executive manager's son. Unfortunately for him, he lost his power when his father got fired for harassing the female employees and he was fired when it came out that he was helping his father look for the employees.
  • Karen used the fact that her father is part of the yakuza to bully the other moms into submission. She particularly targeted Melanie since she wasn't intimidated by her. One day, Karen kicked Melanie causing injury to her and tried to threaten her not to tell the police but she did it anyway. It later turned out that her "father" wasn't actually her father or even part of the yakuza. Her husband has had enough of her and divorced her.
  • Fay used her father position as a company director to lord it over all her coworkers, including the CEO who she had mistaken for a low-level employee due to his casual approach. This including spilling (thankfully not too hot) coffee all over him and his new imported suit.
• Secret Test of Character: Zayn and his bride made up a story of him losing his job to test if his mother Stella truly loved him. It turns out that she did not, and only loved his money.
• The Sociopath:
  • Morgan insists on refusing to cancel the cellphone subscription for a customer's dead mother without her mother being present, due to their high school rivalry.
  • Lyn demands on her sister-in-law's attendance to her wedding after the death of the latter's mother, then tries to extort $10,000 out of her for her and her husband not showing up. And this is after Lyn had cruelly insulted Sara's mother upon learning about the mother's death.
  • Kurt, who was responsible for Skylar's disability in the first place, subsequently divorces her for it. If it that wasn't enough, he contacts her again in two years and invites her to the wedding simply so he can make fun of her even more.
  • Angela shows absolutely No Sympathy to Mike after ending up in the hospital — and, in fact, she proceeds to verbally abuse him the whole time. Then afterward, she files for divorce from him.
  • Jasmine knocks down Faith and ruins her wheelchair in the process on the day of her wedding, and then maintains her belief that Faith (and not Jasmine herself) was the one in the wrong. And this was after sending Faith nasty discriminatory text messages and threatening Faith to not tell her husband (Jasmine's brother) about the treatment, suggesting that she knew her brother would disapprove of her actions.
  • Melinda intended to be the center of her son's wedding by wearing a white wedding dress, and planned to do the same at her daughter's. The part where her sociopathic tendencies become paramount is when she is more upset over the cancellation of her daughter's wedding (where she was already more concerned with her own pride than with being happy for her daughter) over the death of her own husband. She even suggested that she could wear the white wedding dress to her husband's funeral. In fact, at one point, she even suggests that her husband deliberately picked an inopportune time to die just to spite her. Because of her overbearing attitude, most of her family despises her - and, ultimately, both of her children finally cut ties with her.
• Stalker with a Crush: Frank is madly in love with Millie and believes that she is his girlfriend. He punched Trent in the face to "defend" Millie. Unfortunately for him, Trent was in charge of negotiations with Frank's company, so when Trent revealed what happened. Frank was fired and arrested by the police and is now unemployed.
• Stupid Evil: Many a Gold Digger, had they been a more pragmatic villain, likely would've been actually successful in their plan to marry someone wealthy and of high status had they not been so hellbent on mistreating the protagonist due to their perceived "lowly" status — a quality that cannot even be attributed to Greed.
• Threat Backfire: This frequently when the abusive spouse mentions "divorce papers".
  • The video where Patrick verbally abuses Lilly is probably the best example of this trope in action, and it's short and sweet.
  • The video where bad boss Tom targets Evan for verbal abuse, despite Evan being one of the only two competent employees in the department, is the workplace version of this. In this case, "you're fired" instead of "divorce papers" — along with umbrage over "didn't give you permission" to find a new job, and even a mention of "compensation" in the epilogue.
• Threatening to Cut Ties:
  • Fred is a domineering husband who tries to force Pamela, his pregnant wife, to watch his sister's kids. To get her to comply with his demands, he threatens to divorce her. When Pamela decides to go through with the divorce, Fred assumes that she is just bluffing until he learns that Pamela has submitted the divorce papers. Fred is infuriated at this, despite the fact that he gave her a choice between divorce and watching his sister's kids.
  • This episode has an indirect variation of this trope; Ginny is the MC's stepdaughter who threatens to have her father David divorce her if she doesn't pay her tuition. Unfortunately, the threat doesn't work because David and the MC have already divorced.
• The Unfavorite: Maya was neglected by her mother in favor of her brother Wayne, because the latter went to college while she didn't due to her mother forcing her to work. Maya's mother got on her case for her apparently low salary and praised Wayne for getting a job that supposedly has a higher salary. She then moved the family to a new house without Maya, however it turned out that Maya's salary was keeping the family afloat and Wayne only got a part-time job that wouldn't cover the family's expenses. The family was evicted when they weren't able to make the rent.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: Melanie accidentally calls Todd "Harold" when they talk about their upcoming wedding, thus exposing her affair with her lover to Todd.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Roy punched Sarah in the stomach just because she rejected him despite his insistence on dating her.
  • Frank Stein punched a woman in the face after being called out for parking in her space.
  • Christopher's father pours boiling hot tea all over his fiancé, Sarah — while Christopher and his mother laugh.
  • Andrea's father-in-law assaults her because she was raised by a single father.
  • Geoff punches his son's fiancé in the face because she was raised by a single mother.