I agree that there were some issues with the narration -- mostly that it sounded like he was yelling whenever the old man was speaking.
The story was interesting enough.
There were also some times when he kept doing the old man voice when he switched to Shizuo's lines.
When I see a story having to do with Japan or China (or Korea if it it ever happened, I expect) coming up on Escape Artists (or anywhere) I'm usually like "Oh, god, here it comes/fuck this shit not again." This is because I speak the languages. The pronunciation here was better than usual. As a semi-fluent Japanese speaker, the narration didn't bother me very much on the language front, which is high praise: narrators, even some good ones, really bone up the pronunciation in Asian languages (and judging from some comments, more obscure non-Asian ones) a lot. And authors often mess up on usage, which can really screw with my suspension of disbelief (though it'd sail past most people).
The problem I had with it was the characterization. Shizuo and the old man were a little too similar, I think. I could buy the old man talking that way...one crazy old obsessive dude who is clearly as socially awkward as you'd expect sounding like he just had a stroke and was having his first real conversation in a decade, I buy that entirely. The self-centered student sounding almost the same (or when the narrator got confused for a moment, exactly the same), I'm not sure I buy that.
As for the story, again, I'm usually like "oh god, what is it this time," when it comes to Asian-themed sci-fi/horror. I was pleasantly surprised. First of all with what seemed to me as a non-expert, but passingly familiar with the subject to be a pretty reasonable treatment of Bunraku, not going overly MYSTERIOUS ORIENT with it and not getting bogged down in the details. Second, there was that moment where it just went from "okay, this is a rather charming moment between a couple of weirdos" to "uhh, what?" which led inevitably to "welp, that sure is a thing."
Here is my "this story is REALLY about" analysis:
Shizuo represents modern Japanese otaku culture, particularly the last decade or so of it. Take a walk in Akihabara, and go into the most unsettling crypto-pedo shops you come across and you'll see what I'm talking about. Large numbers of mostly young Japanese men cannot relate to women (or life in general in many cases) in any meaningful way. They construct their mental ideal of femininity and project it onto fictional characters, toys, and dolls. Some of the more extreme cases have fantasy dates or marriages with their anime-character pillows, and they DEFINITELY copulate with them. They celebrate fictional characters' birthdays. They have the same level of devotion that Shizuo had for Kinoko.
And behind mentally-predefined as perfect, utterly unattainable in reality 2D loves are armies of other hopeless men like themselves. The images of their ideals of femininity are created by other men, animated by other men. The only place where actual women enter this world is in providing the voices; and with Hatsune Miku even that involvement has been more or less removed. No real woman could ever satisfy a man so obsessed with ideals of femininity utterly unconstrained by actual physical femininity.
And like Shizuo, it's going to...if not kill them, at least ruin their lives. It isn't an obsession that one can lose oneself in and come away intact.
I've also kind of been contemplating the idea for the last few years that there is more than one version of a person. There is the you as perceived by you. There's the you as perceived by others...they have mental models of you, more or less detailed depending on how intimately they know you (or think they know you) that they use to anticipate your behavior and reactions. Among those who share their opinions of you there is a consensus you...the common aspects of others mental models of you. There can be completely fictitious personas attached to physically real people. And fictional characters have individual and consensus mental versions hanging around just like you do.
Anyhow, Shizuo and Aoki's conflict was fascinating, because of this. The character they're obsessing over does not exist except in their heads. They should have complete control over it, but they don't. The consensus version is stronger than their desired version. I suppose that's the difference between fantasy fiction and just fantasy, like personal fantasy. Neither Shizuo nor Aoki could make Kinoko be the latter. They, particularly Aoki, had to let Kinoko be as Kinoko would be if she were real, and as the character had been described to them; rather than as they wished she would be.
Great...fucking...story.