What Is the Meaning Behind the Title ‘Pachinko’?

Apple TV+’s latest masterpiece, Pachinko, follows one Korean family across four generations. It’s a spectacular, soulful story about the perseverance of a people, the love that carries us through crises, and the trauma that trickles down from grandparent to grandchild. It is a gorgeous piece of art and a damn fine television show. Watching it, though, you might have one burning question: why is the show called Pachinko?

Pachinko is based on the novel of the same name by Min Jin Lee. While the novel follows various generational sagas, Pachinko Season 1 on Apple TV+ is primarily focused on the story of family matriarch Sunja (played in different eras by Yu-na, Minha Kim, and Youn Yuh-jung). She grows up the daughter of a humble innkeeper and his hard-working wife in a seaside village close to Busan. We watch as she experiences joy, grief, and that first pang of love. Later, she immigrates to Japan, which is where her grandson Solomon’s (Jin Ha) story intersects with shadows from Sunja’s past. But what is the meaning behind the title Pachinko, any way?

Pachinko on Apple TV+: What is the Meaning Behind The Title Pachinko?

First thing’s first: What is pachinko?

Pachinko is a game (sort of similar in vibe to say, slot machines) that has long been popular in modern Japan. The apparatus looks somewhat like a pinball machine, but the idea is to try to get the small balls to bounce off pins into a specific catch cup to win ticket or tokens as prizes. As gambling is technically illegal in Japan, players redeem their tickets/tokens for a form of currency that they can purchase objects with.

So why is a beautiful Korean family epic named after a Japanese gambling game? Well, because one of the main characters, Mozasu (Soji Arai) owns a pachinko parlor. Mozasu is Sunja’s son and Solomon’s father. So, from a practical point of view, the family’s fortunes are tied to pachinko.

However, pachinko is also a game of chance that is often rigged in ways players can’t see. This is also a metaphor for how the choices that the characters make in Pachinko affect generations to come. Likewise, there are forces at play in the story that sometimes the characters can’t see that also weigh in on their fates.

So it’s called Pachinko for literal and metaphoric reasons.

Now stop reading this blog post and go watch the very excellent show, Pachinko!

Where to stream Pachinko