"Pachinko" is based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Min Jin Lee. The book centers around a Korean family through multiple generations, and the show highlights their journey with "war and peace, love and loss, triumph and reckoning," according to Apple TV+'s summary.
The story first begins in the early 1900s amidst the Japanese annexation of Korea and follows Sunja, the daughter of Korean business owners, who falls in love with a married man, Koh Hansu, and ultimately gets pregnant by him. When he abandons her, Sunja faces great difficulty and must do what she can to protect the name of her family and save them from being disgraced. When a young minister, Baek Isak, hears of her troubling situation, he offers to marry her and bring her to Japan for a better life. The remainder of the story focuses on Sunja's journey with her children and how those children grow up amidst struggles and loss while remaining surrounded by what keeps them together: family.
