There is a novel by Keita Tokaji called "Yukai no Gosa" (The Margin of Kidnapping). The protagonist and narrator is the ghost of an elementary school boy who was unluckily harassed and killed by thugs. As a ghost, the protagonist can go anywhere and read other people's thoughts. From this god-like perspective, the story calmly depicts how society moves on after his death. It quietly portrays things like: the culprit continuing to live a completely normal and peaceful life despite having killed a child; his DQN (trashy) parents mourning his death; the police making a false arrest after a botched investigation; and an innocent ordinary person being driven to a false confession by police interrogation. Toward the end of the story, the protagonist is watching a memorial service held at the elementary school when he becomes interested in a particular girl. That girl was thinking, "If I get kidnapped too, will everyone pay attention to me?" At first glance, she looks like a plain, gloomy wallflower, but upon closer inspection, she's quite cute, and the protagonist becomes interested in her and decides to observe her for a while. Then, in the final chapter, the protagonist addresses the reader and announces that—perhaps out of boredom or fatigue—he is moving on from this world to the afterlife. "I'm curious about that girl too, and I'm sure you readers are curious about how the case turns out, but I'm sorry," he says, apologizing as the story ends.
It seems it was serialized in "Shosetsu Suiri." Was it axed? Well, I don't know if it was axed or not, but this author is a unique writer who pulls off these bizarre, abrupt twists at the end without a second thought.
To give another example, the same author wrote a full-length horror novel called "Reimi: Seijo Sairin" (Reimi: The Holy Woman's Second Coming). The beginning and middle are a very serious horror suspense. It starts with five men and women gathering in an abandoned building, each bringing a precious "something." However, this also ends in a bizarre way. The five men and women had made a promise several years ago: the six of them would cut "something" into six equal pieces and each take one, with the agreement to gather years later and put "something" back together. However, in the present, the five of them gather at the promised abandoned building, but the sixth and final person, A, does not show up. While waiting for A, the relationships among the five deteriorate, and their desire to monopolize "something" explodes. A bloody struggle begins. That "something" divided into six pieces was the corpse of an exquisitely beautiful woman named "Reimi." Between the segments of the five people fighting in the abandoned building, the past is told from the perspective of the absent A. All six of them had fallen under the spell of Reimi's beauty, worshiping her like a goddess. One day, Reimi commanded them, "Kill me, dismember my body, and put it back together years later." The six did as they were told, and A was entrusted with one of Reimi's legs. Strangely enough, even without embalming, Reimi's corpse never decayed and maintained its beauty from when she was alive. A (a female) spent her days brooding, but suddenly decided to look into "Reimi's past." As she investigated Reimi's footsteps, pitch-black information kept pouring out. (This part has an intensely horror-like flavor and is incredibly entertaining.) Reimi had brought bizarre calamities and ruin to everyone she had ever been involved with in the past. The most terrifying part was that Reimi was the lover of the leader of a certain cult. That cult had met a gruesome end after performing dark rituals related to another dimension. Apparently, Reimi is not human, but rather a demon-like entity from another dimension. Just as A understands this fact, a strange man appears.
A very cheerful and ugly man casually approaches A, talks to her, and calls himself an "angel." (From around here, the author's usual quirky style begins to mix in, while at the same time, a heartwarming atmosphere lingers for a while due to the angel's good nature.) According to the angel, he was ordered by God to monitor the earth. In this world created by God, monsters from other dimensions occasionally slip in. The angel's job is to find such foreign objects. When the angel asks, "Do you know anything about such anomalies?", A initially dodges and hides it. However, as she spends time with the angel one way or another, she gradually warms up to him and finally reveals Reimi's existence to the angel. The final part set in the abandoned building: Three people are already dead from the previous fighting, and two are still fighting. Then, intruders burst in. Who appears is the cult and its leader, whose information came to light in A's segment. In reality, the cult hadn't perished; though transformed into grotesque monsters by the dark rituals Reimi made them perform, they had secretly survived. The cult captures the two, steals Reimi's corpse, and tries to start a resurrection ritual by connecting only the head and torso of the corpse. Bearing a grudge against Reimi, the cult intended to resurrect her in an incomplete state to exact their revenge. With the appearance of the terrifying cult leader, the atmosphere turns into something like "The final boss of evil has appeared!" But the moment the cult leader starts speaking, the mood is completely shattered. (From here on, this work completely transforms into the author's unique "style," and as a horror suspense, it completely falls apart.) The cult leader repeatedly utters low-brow remarks at an elementary school level in broken Japanese, and the method of Reimi's resurrection ritual becomes utterly absurd due to the cult leader's distorted fetishes stemming from past trauma.
And then, even more intruders appear. To everyone's surprise, it's "Black Angels" equipped with swords. While normal angels have the job of monitoring the earth, Black Angels are a militant faction specializing in the extermination of otherworldly anomalies like Reimi. The Black Angels slaughter everyone present (both the remaining two people and the cult). However, a moment too late, Reimi is resurrected, albeit in an incomplete state without limbs. "Looks incomplete, so we can easily kill her, right?" the Black Angels laugh with absolute composure. Meanwhile, what about A? Looking up at the abandoned building, she is intensely shaken by the fact that her former comrades betrayed Reimi, while at the same time trembling in fear of God. The ugly angel tries to comfort and reassure A, pushing her by the back to leave the scene together with her. "The next instant, the abandoned building exploded massively." With that single sentence, it ends.
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