> The problem of the reader needing to understand is story is not in the story itself. Anytime anyone reads anything, their goal is to figure out what they are reading... so that problem doesn't add anything.

I feel you're been needlessly pedantic here. Sure, the reader always has to parse each sentence and understand it. But that's pretty different from the author deliberately introducing a non sequitur that cannot be understood until the later resolution.

> It's just a totally different structure.

What skybrian is saying is that, yes, at one level the structures are different, but at the next level of abstraction there are commonalities. In both cases a tension is created in the reader which is then later resolved.

In conflict-based stories, most of the tension comes from the reader sympathizing with the protagonist who is directly experiencing the tension. In kishōtenketsu, the reader experiences a tension the characters do not because it's not "in world".

Even in Western literature, this technique is used all the time. Foreshadowing is common. Many stories shift viewpoints between multiple characters so that the reader has access to insight the characters do not, and that's used to deliberately create tension and anticipation in the reader.

As another example, it's common in novels to have multiple independent storylines that eventually connect. Part of the tension is "what do these two people's stories have to do with each other?"

Yes, I was thinking of exactly that in the shower later. It's one of my favorite ways for an author to build tension.

It's worth noting that this is the structure of haikus, which rarely make any sense in translation. Haikus hinge on a twist as well, usually a word of two meanings that is meant to create emotional movement. For example, something like "In the forest the dark pine/of my desire" would play on two meanings of the word "pine".

I agree that they are quite different. However, I was pointing out a similarity when looked at in a more abstract way.

Some stories are intentionally more difficult to understand until you've read far enough. In this sense, the author is setting up a problem and resolving it.