> 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.