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If you haven’t yet gotten into Pachinko, the newest dramatic offering from Apple TV+, then what are you waiting for?
As Decider’s Meghan O’Keefe described it, “Pachinko is a gorgeous TV show that will transport you with its straightforward charm and epic soul. But like all art, it also pulls off that most holy miracle: it will make you feel more human.”
But what is Pachinko, exactly, and is it based on a true story?
Who is Pachinko?
Nope. Pachinko is not a real person, nor a character in the show.
What is Pachinko?
If you got confused and thought it might be a game from The Price is Right, you’re only mostly wrong. That’s called Plinko. But even Plinko bears some influence from the Japanese mechanical arcade game called Pachinko, which first emerged in the 1920s as a children’s toy, then became popular among adults in the 1930s. World War II shuttered Japan’s pachinko parlors, but they returned after the war. It’s estimated that perhaps 80 percent of today’s pachinko places in Japan are owned by ethnic Koreans. And that’s where we find a link back to the Apple TV+ series.
Is Pachinko based on a true story?
Nope, but read on to find out what it is based on.
Is Pachinko based on anything, then?
Yes. The Apple TV+ series adapts the 2017 novel, written by American author Min Jin Lee, which was a National Book Award finalist for fiction that year. Lee, born in South Korea and raised in Queens, wrote a multi-generational book about a Korean family, and their experiences from the 19th century into the 20th as Japan annexed Korea, through the wars, and life afterward. The novel is separated into three sections or books: Book I starts in 1883 and ends in 1933; Book II (1939-1962); and Book III (1962-1989). So it’s meant to be representative of a Korean family’s struggles to overcome racism, prejudice and hardship as they live and work alongside the Japanese, while not actually portraying a particular real-life family.
