Japan's Favorite Pastime: Pachinko

Originating in Japan, pachinko is a type of mechanical ball game resembling pinball. While pinball uses a larger ball, Pachinko uses small steel balls rented to players by pachinko parlors such as MARUHAN.

There are currently a wide variety of leisure activities in Japan. People spend their free time in any number of ways, refreshing, relaxing, or even studying for self-improvement. The leisure industry in Japan has undergone significant development in trying to meet these needs. Among these forms of leisure, pachinko falls in the same category as video games, karaoke, lottery, dining out, and bicycle or horse races.

Over the last six decades, pachinko has become an integral part of Japanese culture and Japanese leisure. With approximately nine million players in 2016, pachinko is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Japan. The ¥21 trillion JPY pachinko industry employs over 240,000 people and accounts for nearly a third of Japan’s entertainment and leisure market. In other words, pachinko is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Japan.

The pachinko industry in Japan is, however, highly fragmented, with over 3,400 different operators. Parlors have various kinds of pachinko machines, letting customers select a machine according to their preferences or the day’s mood. There are a large number of small operators and a smaller number of large operators, of which MARUHAN is the largest.

  The pachinko industry is closely supervised by the Japanese government and other regulatory authorities. Rules and regulations are regularly introduced to control operations and a clear distinction between pachinko and gambling, which is prohibited by Japanese law. Strict rules outlined in the Amusement Business Law govern the licensing of pachinko hall operators, payout ratios, and technical specifications of the machines. MARUHAN conforms to all regulations in every respect and, for this reason, is recognized as an industry leader.

 I suppose a better look would be inside, but this is as close as I will go to these places. Inside is so loud as to make your ears ring like the loudest rock concert. I'd rather keep my hearing, thanks. What am I talking about? Those who are familiar with Japan can probably instantly tell by the ugly building. It's pachiko!

The landscape of Japan is unfortunately dotted with these ugly buildings, especially smaller towns which may be only farms and pachinko. Pachinko is a kind of vertical pinball, but unlike pinball there is little to no skill involved. Small metal palls launch up into the playing field and fall down, bouncing off pins into various gates. Depending on the gates the balls fall into, you win... more balls! At the end of the play session, these balls can be traded for various prizes. Prizes which can then often be sold for money if one knows where to sell them.

Yes, that makes it gambling. Pachinko may be the most popular form of gambling in the country today, maybe even the most popular recreational activity. Ask any blue collar worker in Japan what the are doing after work and the answer will almost certainly be pachinko. It's not as popular with white collar workers, but only because they never leave the office. When they do, however, many of them enjoy some pachinko action too. It's also surprisingly popular among housewives, similar to the image we may have of the middle-aged women sitting at a slot machine in Vegas with her tub of quarters.파칭코사이트인포

                

Every Konami Game Turned Into A Pachinko Machine (So Far)

 In light of Konami's gradual move towards the pachinko market, here is every Konami video game franchise adapted for Japanese pachinko parlors.

Over the past decade, one-time gaming giant Konami has shifted more of its focus on creating Pachinko and pachislot machines. To that end, they have adapted many of their most beloved game series into some form of pachinko.

In Japan, where both Konami and pachinko originate, open gambling is prohibited by law. As a result, companies have developed pachinko games and parlors as a way of not-so subtly circumventing the anti-gambling law. In the case of traditional pachinko, players purchase a number of metal balls which they feed into the machine. The balls fall down a series of pegs until it lands at the bottom. The ball's final location determines the player's reward, which comes in the form of more metal balls that the player can exchange for physical items and (eventually) money. Pachislots work similarly, except they are much less complex and resemble traditional western slot machines in many ways. Both, however, frequently play animations and stories to engage the player as they gamble. In the case of video game pachinko machines, these animations generally follow the stories of the games they are based on.

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In this regard, Konami's fleet of game-based pachinko are no different from other machines. According to the official Konami site, Konami has been making pachinko since at least the early 2000's. They're first foray into game-based pachinko came not long after. Since then, they've adapted a total of ten different Konami-published video game series into some kind of pachinko or pachislot machine. However, it wasn't until the mid-2010's that people began to notice the company downsizing its gaming division in favor of pachinko and mobile games. Despite negative fan reception, however, Konami has stayed resolute and continues to release game-based pachinko machines. This is every series they've adapted so far.

Rumble Roses Pachinko Machines

Rumble Roses is an all female fighting game series inspired by professional wrestling and released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2. A sequel, Rumble Roses XX, would release two years later for the Xbox 360. The series played similarly to other wrestling games in the vein of Smack-down vs. Raw. However, it set itself apart by putting great care into giving the player ways to ogle its roster of scantily-costumed lady wrestlers. It's similar in many ways to Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, another series of "sports" games that have a rather shameless appreciation for female anatomy.

Still, it's hard to deny that there's a big market out there for what Rumble Roses has to offer. Furthermore, the consensus among players on Meta-critic is that the game-play is actually somewhat solid. Regardless of the reason, Rumble Roses carved out enough of a niche that Konami decided to honor the series by making it the company's very first pachinko video game adaptation. The original game received a pachislot machine in 2006, followed by a pachislot version of Rumble Roses XX in 2008 and an original pachislot machine, Rumble Roses 3D in 2012.

Beatmania Pachinko Machines

Out of all of Konami's different video game pachislots, their 2008 rendition of Beat-mania - an arcade rhythm game - stands out as the most unique. Most pachislots work similarly to the average slot machine with three light-up buttons determining when each rotary cylinder stops. Beat-mania, on the other hand, is just as much of a rhythm game as it is a slot machine. The player is tasked with playing through a bonafide Beat-mania track (shown in this YouTube video) while also managing the cylinders. The only problem is that one's success in playing the machine's songs doesn't seem to correspond to their success with the slots. It's one of few pachislots that actually demands skill from its players, but also never rewards them for it.

Metal Gear Solid Pachinko Machines

Perhaps the most well-known pachislot machine in the west, the Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater pachislot from 2016 is infamous among Konami detractors. Releasing just after the company's big move away from console game development, the MGS pachislot felt like a kick in the ribs to gamer. This was especially true after Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain disappointed fans with its borderline incomplete story. On top of that, Konami had recently faced heavy backlash for closing down MGS developers Kojima Productions and unceremoniously firing Hideo Kojima, the super-star gaming auteur at the helm of the classic stealth action franchise. As a result, western gamer had become less-than-fond of Konami as a company throughout the mid 2010's.

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The fact that this pachislot machine acts as a soft HD remake of one of the series' most popular titles does not help either. Fans hail Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater as a work of near-perfection, and were disturbed to see some of its best set pieces and cutscenes newly rendered in glorious, high-definition detail for the sake of a Japan-exclusive slot machine. Though it may only be a footnote in Konami's fall from grace, this particular machine stands as a final blow to a dying era of Konami's products.

Silent Hill Pachinko Machines

Like Metal Gear Solid, Konami has had a turbulent past with the Silent Hill franchise. When Hideo Kojima's joint project with lauded movie director Guillermo Del Toro, Silent Hills was cancelled at the height of its production, it became just another bone to pick between Konami and their fans. Just like the Metal Gear Solid pachislot, Konami's Silent Hill pachislot emerged around the same time as its respective controversy, this time presenting a reinterpretation of the events of Silent Hill 2. Though it did not see the same kind of attention as the MGS machine, the Silent Hill pachislot serves as another testament to Konami's growing disenchantment with console gaming throughout the 2010's.

Castlevania Pachinko Machines

The Castlevania series might just be Konami's most profitable Intellectual Property. As a result, it shouldn't be a big surprise that the company has created a healthy handful of related slot machines. Their earliest entry in this line is a 2009 reprisal of the first Castlevania similar to other pachislot remakes. Konami would follow this up in 2010 and 2012 respectively with adaptations of both Castlevania 2 & Castlevania 3. Additionally, they created a pachislot associated with the 2010 action game, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Like many game-inspired pachinko machines, each of these examples presents a soft remake of the original; retelling the story of the original through revised cut-scenes that appear as the player gambles away.

The Lords of Shadow pachislot machine originally released in 2017, and is the most recent pachinko adaptation of one of Konami's classic console series. Though it released during a similar time as the MGS and Silent Hill machines, neither Lords of Shadow nor the other Castlevania pachinko machines bear quite the same sour reputation. Unlike its kin, the Castlevania machines simply did not have as much controversy surrounding them as Konami's other IPs at the time.

Gradius, Parodious, & Twinbee Pachinko Machines

Of all the things to get turned into pachinko machines, the last series one might expect are Konami's various side scrolling shoot-'em-ups. Generally speaking, all of these game-based machines follow adapt the plot of their respective titles in some fashion. However, side-scrolling arcade games like Gradius, Parodius (a parody of Gradius) and Twin-bee have never been especially plot-heavy. What little plot there is, is represented in some of these (mainly Gradius: The Slot) through anime-style animations rather than the pix-elated graphics of the original. While there isn't too much to say about these pachislot adaptations, they're an interesting example of how Konami finds ways to re purpose its most popular IPs for their growing gambling business.

Contra Pachinko Machines

Before Dark Souls became the most prominent cliché regarding difficult games, there was Contra. At least Souls-likes have a respectable element of fairness in their design; Contra just wants to watch players suffer. In a game where the player only has three chances, the length of one's survival (at least, until they get good) felt like as big of a gamble as playing the lottery. The only difference is the stakes are monumentally larger. So, naturally, Konami decided to make that feeling more literal by turning Contra into a pachislot machine.

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Contra 3D pulled all the standard tricks for a pachislot game. It acts ostensibly like a slot machine while playing cinematic roughly representing the plot of its source material. In this case, according to the Contra Wiki, the story follows Contra's two golden boys, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean - this time joined by a fem-me fa-tale named Anna Crawford - as they combat the devilish Red Falcon Army. In other words, its pretty standard stuff in terms of Contra lore. Granted, lore has never exactly been a major focus of either Contra or pachislot.

Mahjong Fight Club Pachinko Machines

It'd be a mistake to think that Konami would just adapt its most popular mainstream series into pachinko machines. They also do it to their lesser known IPs, such as Mahjong Fight Club. As the name implies, Mahjong Fight Club is a simple Mahjong series that has appeared in numerous iterations across arcades and consoles since the early 2000's. However, Konami first introduced it to the world of Pachinko in 2014, with the simply named Mahjong Fight Club pachislot machine. A sequel would follow two years later, along with a fully-fledged pachinko machine in 2018. To date, that actually makes CR Pachinko Mahjong Fight Club Konami's most recent crossover project between one of their traditional video game series and their growing pachinko market.파칭코사이트인포

Pachinko industry raises money for low-income students

 

The pachinko industry is urging customers to donate steel balls from their winnings to help put hard-up students through university.

But anti-gambling activists have dismissed the campaign as a marketing stunt that does nothing to address problems with gambling addiction.

“The aim is to help people in difficulty who need assistance to go through higher education,” said Tadamasa Fukiura, chairman of Support 21, a nonprofit organization that has teamed up with six pachinko parlor companies to launch the “pp Shogakukin” scholarship fund.

“A lot of students have to take part-time jobs. We want them to be able to concentrate on their studies,” said Fukiura.

Pachinko is a game in which players feed small steel balls into a mechanical cabinet in an attempt to release more balls, which can then be traded in for prizes and  indirectly cash.

Although the industry has been hit by an aging population and the rise of mobile gaming in recent years, players spent ¥23.3 trillion at pachinko parlors in 2015  about 4 percent of GDP according to a 2016 white paper published by the Japan Productivity Center.

The pp Shogakukin campaign encourages players to donate balls from their winnings  with each ball valued at ¥4  into a box located within the pachinko parlor. The money is then used to award scholarship funds to students who need assistance to pay for university.

The drive began last December with around 40 collection boxes being placed in parlors nationwide. The first monthly scholarship payments were made in March, with eight students each receiving between ¥30,000 and ¥50,000, Fukiura said.

Anyone over the age of 18 can apply for the scholarship, with the program’s board choosing which students will receive the money. The selection process is based on several criteria, including financial means, academic performance and the applicant’s hopes for the future. Scholarship money does not need to be repaid.

Support 21 was originally established in 1992 as a social welfare foundation to help foreign nationals with ties to Japan, but the pp Shogakukin program is open to everyone wishing to study in Japan.

“Previously our focus was on supporting people who have ties with foreign countries, but we knew that a lot of Japanese people also needed assistance and we weren’t able to help them out due to financial reasons,” said Fukiura.

“We wondered how we could help them so we talked to people involved in the pachinko industry and they had the same dream. So we joined forces and started this project.”

Several of the pachinko industry’s leading parlor operators, including Maruhan and Sankyo, are involved in the project.

“Young people with a thirst for knowledge are the people who will lead society in the future, so we want to do something to support them,” a Maruhan spokesperson told The Japan Times. “While we will continue to look at various ways we can do this, the pachinko industry has come together and will look to expand the pp Shogakukin scheme.

“We are a company in the entertainment industry that provides a service to our customers, and that is how we generate revenue. We don’t consider giving something back to society to be an ethical problem,” he said.

But the plan has come under fire from anti-gambling activists, who believe that the pachinko industry is interested only in boosting its own image.

Pachinko is not officially classified as gambling, which Japanese law prohibits outside of government-run activities such as horse and boat-racing. Instead pachinko is treated as recreation, but skirts anti-gaming laws by allowing players to trade in steel balls for tokens, which are then swapped for cash at booths located near  but legally separate from the pachinko parlor.

“It’s gambling,” said Noriko Tanaka, president of Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Society Concerned about the Gambling Addiction. “No one in Japan believes that pachinko is just a game. Everyone sees it as gambling.

“In my opinion, the pachinko industry is just trying to boost its image. The pachinko industry is under attack and has come in for a lot of criticism. A lot of people think that pachinko is not a good thing. In particular, people think that the pachinko industry is doing nothing to combat gambling addiction,” Tanaka said. “So I think this pp Shogakukin is just something to improve its image.”

A 2013 survey conducted by a research team at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry found that more than 5 million people in Japan  nearly 5 percent of the adult population are thought to have a gambling addiction. The figure was higher than most other countries, where it was around 1 percent.

It’s a big problem for society, but they are just trying to boost their own image,” said Tanaka. “Instead of doing that, I’d like to see them do something to combat addiction. I think it’s time they came up with a proper plan.

Last December, the Diet passed a law allowing casino gambling in Las Vegas-style resorts.

But the government is also reported to be considering restrictions on existing gambling establishments, including pachinko parlors, in a bid to tackle addiction. The measures being considered include allowing an individual’s access to pachinko to be restricted at the request of relatives.

There is a very naive way of thinking about gambling in this country, said Tanaka. There are no measures in place to combat it and permission keeps being given to open new places to gamble. In other countries, they don’t just open up more places without addressing gambling addiction. Japan is far too soft in this area.파칭코사이트인포

Japan struggles to shut down pachinko parlors as it battles virus

 

TOKYO -- Municipal governments in Japan are criticizing pachinko parlors that have remained open despite requests to close down as the country tries to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

The parlors are popular gambling destinations, and lines can often be seen forming outside of the noisy halls before they open in the morning.

"I am disclosing the names [of the shops] in order to prevent the further spread of the virus," Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters on Friday. "I am asking Osaka residents not to go to these shops."

Osaka named six parlors that refused to comply with the municipal government's requests, made through phone calls and in written messages.

Japan has imposed a loose lock-down under the guise of the national government's declaring a state of emergency in a bid to bring down the number of patients. As of Thursday, the country had 11,772 people who had tested positive for the virus. The number has been increasing by the hundreds every day.

Not all parlors are refusing to comply, and some of those that are not going along are in financial binds, according to the Tokyo Pachinko and Pachislot Cooperative Association.

"There were many shops whose temporary closures would lead to bankruptcies," a representative of the association said, adding that many member shops have called for financial support from the government.

Still, he continued, "it is unfortunate that there are stores that have refused to close."

Japanese law does not allow local authorities to forcefully shut down stores. During the emergency, officials are relying on requests and the possibility of shaming businesses that do not comply by publicly naming them.

Osaka is the first municipality to go down this road, though it is not the only place where pachinko parlors are flaunting officials' requests.

Playing pachinko is gambling, which can be addictive, and there are reports that many players are traveling across prefecture borders to find an open parlor and get their fix. This has earned them the wrath of locals, who fear some of these gamblers might be bringing the corona-virus with them.

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said that by Tuesday she would start naming parlors that are flaunting the city's request and remain open. According to Koike, the city has called 41 parlors to ask that they temporarily close.

Elsewhere, Miyagi Gov. Shunji Kouno said during a press conference on Friday that he will request the prefecture's gaming sites to close as they are suspected of drawing gamblers from other prefectures and increasing the risk presented by the pandemic.

Small pachinko parlors can draw dozens of gamblers who normally play about a meter away from one another, though the shops say they are now social distancing their customers.

The timing is critical: Japan's annual Golden Week vacation period begins next week, and some governors are calling for businesses to give their employees 12 straight holidays beginning Saturday in an effort to keep people from going out, which could cut off the virus's path to more infections.

Fukuoka Gov. Hiroshi Ogawa on Thursday said his prefecture has sent letters asking 36 pachinko shops and restaurants to close. According to Ogawa, 90% of the pachinko parlors in Fukuoka have closed, but 10 remained open as of Thursday.

According to 2017 data by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, 0.8% of adults in Japan were suspected of having gambling addictions. A major outlet for gambling addiction in the country is pachinko. There are about 760 parlors in Tokyo alone, according to the Tokyo Pachinko and Pachislot Cooperative Association.

Gambling is supposedly illegal in Japan, but pachinko parlors are in effect exempted from the prohibition. They are ubiquitous and huge business here.

Punters crowd into small rooms to play pachinko machines and more traditional slot machines, normally enveloped in smoke, loud music and electronic jingles.

The law on gambling is circumvented by the simple ruse of making gamblers exchange tokens for cash at booths off the main premises.

On the face of it, pachinko parlors appear to be perfect places for the virus to spread, even if no outbreaks have so far been linked to them.

“I do feel there is a risk of infection,” said a 24-year-old man in the line, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his privacy. “But people who like to play pachinko are not really thinking about others when they do it.”

The man normally works at a game arcade but said it closed because of the emergency. That left him with time on his hands — and this week he chose to play pachinko.

Nearby, a 30-year-old construction worker who only gave his first name, Naoya, said it was unfair to single out the pachinko industry, which he said was being scapegoated.

“Look at electronics shops and home centers,” he said. “Enormous numbers of people go there on weekends, and they are overcrowded.”파칭코사이트인포

Exploring the hidden history of Korean immigrants in Japan

 

Reading Pachinko is like binge-watching every season of an HBO series. Instead of capturing a single time and place, Min Jin Lee’s heartbreaking historical novel spans the entire 20th century through four generations, three wars and two countries with a troubled past. A moving and powerful account of one of the world’s most persecuted immigrant communities—Koreans living in Japan—it may be remembered as one of the best books of the year.

But here’s a secret: Lee almost abandoned Pachinko after the first draft.

Twenty years ago, she quit her job as a corporate lawyer to become a writer. It didn’t go well. “I wrote a dreadful manuscript with a pretentious title that was never inflicted upon innocent readers,” Lee says. Her second attempt didn’t go much better, but her third attempt at fiction, Free Food for Millionaires, was published to universal acclaim in 2007.

And yet, Lee couldn’t stop thinking about her abandoned second novel, the one that would eventually become Pachinko. While Free Food for Millionaires focused on Korean Americans in New York, she still wanted to write about the Korean diaspora in Japan. “The fascinating history of the Korean Japanese,” Lee says, “is one of the clearest manifestations of legal, social and cultural exclusion in a modern, well-educated and developed democratic nation.”

The first draft of Pachinko was set in Tokyo during the 1980s. But when Lee returned to the manuscript, she realized that she had to go back much further.

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea. With the stroke of a pen, every citizen of Korea became a subject of Imperial Japan, and would remain so until Japan’s defeat at the end of World War II. During those 35 years, thousands of Koreans immigrated across the sea to Japan, many of them farmers unable to prove they owned their land.

It is these Korean-Japanese immigrants and their descendants—the Zainichi—that Lee wanted to explore in the resurrected novel that became Pachinko.

The word Zainichi is Japanese for “staying in Japan temporarily,” which is misleading, since most Korean Japanese are permanent residents and naturalized Japanese citizens. Sadly, Zainichi have suffered decades of oppression in Japan. During World War II, Korean men were forced to fight for Japan while Korean women were kidnapped as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. After the war and throughout the 20th century, Koreans were disenfranchised, excluded from Japanese society and denied equal rights. In fact, Japan didn’t stop fingerprinting Koreans during alien registration procedures until 1993.

“The Zainichi are by definition considered foreign, transient and ‘other’ by many Japanese people,” Lee says. “Moreover, some Korean Japanese, especially children who are traumatically bullied, are seen as other to themselves. I was profoundly disturbed by this idea of being seen as permanently ‘other’ at key stages of one’s psychological development.”

In 2007, just after the release of Free Food for Millionaires, Lee and her husband moved from New York to Tokyo. 

“The move to Japan was a lucky coincidence for the book, but when I had to let go of the initial draft and start again—buddy, I was not a happy camper,” Lee says. “The field research forced me to throw out the initial manuscript and write a historical novel based primarily on one family.”

The result is Pachinko, a poignant, sprawling, multi generational epic in the same vein as Yaa Gyasi’s Home-going, full of births, deaths, marriages and betrayals. Written in light, fluid prose, it begins in the 1880s on the coast of Korea, where a boy with a cleft palate is born into a small fishing village. Shortly after Japan colonizes his homeland, he marries the daughter of a farmer with the help of a matchmaker. Their own daughter, Sunja, almost brings the family to ruin as a young adult, but a Protestant minister whisks her away to Japan in 1933, where she becomes the matriarch of an extended family.

In Osaka, Sunja and her children are subject to bigotry because of their Korean heritage. Through World War II and the fall of the Empire of Japan, Sunja raises two boys with the help of her sister-in-law. The firstborn studies European literature in college until he learns a shocking family secret. Heartbroken, he moves to Nagano and pretends to be Japanese, eventually joining his brother in the pachinko business, though not in the same parlor, or even the same city. Eventually, Sunja becomes the grandmother of a Tokyo banker who carries the story into the 1980s, a full century after the story began.

The novel was initially called Motherland, but Lee changed the title when she came to a realization: “Nearly every Korean-Japanese person I interviewed or researched was somehow related (either intimately or distantly) to the pachinko business, one of the very few businesses Koreans were allowed to work in or have an ownership interest.”

If you’ve ever watched “The Price Is Right,” you’re already familiar with pachinko. It’s essentially a vertical pinball machine, though it was stylized as “plinko” for the game show.

“The pachinko business—a multi-billion-dollar industry with double the export revenues of the Japanese automobile industry—is often viewed with great suspicion and contempt by middle-class Japanese,” Lee says. “However, one out of every 11 Japanese adults plays pachinko regularly, and there is at least one pachinko parlor in every train station and shopping street in Japan. Pachinko is a game of chance and manipulation, and I was interested in this gambling business as a metaphor.”

Like a pachinko ball, Sunja careens through the 20th century as a daughter, a wife, a mother and finally a grandmother. “It took so much of my life to write this novel, and even though the work and the waiting was its own trial, I have to acknowledge that it was helpful to age along with the book because I had the opportunity to encounter and learn as many different perspectives as possible,” Lee says.

And while Pachinko takes place on the other side of the globe, it should be required reading for Americans in 2017. 파칭코사이트인포

“The recent presidential election has demonstrated a deeply divided nation, but what is even more troubling to me is how all the different groups cannot seem to comprehend the views of the others,” Lee says. “In an increasingly polarized world with great economic, educational and socio-cultural disparities, I want to believe that we can turn to narratives to empathize with all the parties who participate in both inclusion and exclusion.”

Physiological changes in Pachinko players

 

Abstract

Pachinko is a popular form of recreation in Japan. However, in recent years, along with Pachinko's popularity, "Pachinko dependence" has become topical news. The purpose of this study was to investigate beta-endorphin, catecholamines, immune system responses and heart rate during the playing of Pachinko. The following significant results were observed. (1) Plasma concentration of beta-endorphin increased before playing Pachinko and while in the Pachinko-center (p < 0.05). (2) Beta-endorphin and nor epinephrine increased when the player began to win (i.e. at "Fever-start") compared to baseline (p < 0.05). (3) Beta-endorphin, nor epinephrine and dopamine increased when the winning streak finished (i.e. at "Fever-end") compared to baseline (p < 0.05-0.01). (4) Nor epinephrine increased past 30 minutes after "Fever-end" compared to baseline (p < 0.05). (5) Heart rate increased before "Fever-start" compared to baseline, peaked at "Fever-start" and rapidly decreased to match rates measured at rest. But the increase was observed from 200 seconds after "Fever-start" (p < 0.05-0.001). (6) There was a positive correlation between the number of hours subjects played Pachinko in a week and the differences between beta-endorphin levels at "Fever-start" and those at rest (p < 0.05). (7) The number of T-cells decreased while the number of NK cells increased at "Fever-start" compared to baseline (p < .05). These results suggest that intracerebral substances such as beta-endorphin and dopamine are involved in the habit-forming behavior associated with Pachinko.

Introduction

Pachinko is a very popular form of recreation in Japan.

It is played in Pachinko parlors or centers which are large

halls containing row upon row of brightly colored

Pachinko machines. These machines are essentially a

combination of pinball and slot machine. Players pay for

large number of balls at 4 yen each. As in pinball, play

consists in controlling the speed with which each ball is

released into a complex arrangement of pins and gates.

When a ball enters the start gate this instructs the

machine to make a random selection of three numbers or

pictures. Similar to what appears in the window of a slot

machine, these numbers can be seen spinning on the

electronic display screen before coming to rest in a

sequence that may or may not signify a win. When a

player wins in this way the machine pays out Pachinko

balls which can either be fed back into play, or exchanged

for prizes, and ultimately for cash. Sometimes the player

will win more than 2,000 balls in a single jackpot. For the

purposes of our study, the most important point to grasp

is that when a player begins to win this can mark the start

of a series of consecutive pay-outs which can amount to a

considerable sum. This winning streak is known as

“Fever”, and comes to an end at a clearly defined moment

when the machine stops paying out.

According to “Leisure White Paper ’97” (Leisure

Development Center 1997), the population of Pachinko players in Japan had decreased slightly from 28,100,000

in 1987 to 27,400,000 in 1996. Total sales, however, had

risen to 24,366 billion yen from 11,602 billion yen. An

average Pachinko-player, therefore, that was spending

380,000 yen in 1987 increased his spending to 890,000

yen in 1996. These phenomena are thought to reflect the

increased perception of Pachinko as a form of gambling.

Actually, Pachinko has become a form of high-risk

gambling in which prizes or prize money can be obtained,

and a player may spend from 15,000 yen to 20,000 yen in

one hour’s playing. This phenomenon was brought to

national attention when some mothers, engrossed in

playing Pachinko, left their children in their car on an

unusually hot day and the children died. Thus so-called

“Pachinko-dependence” became a special news topic. We

hypothesized that there may be physiological changes

during the playing of Pachinko.

Yamada reported the appearance of FM theta waves

in one woman playing Pachinko (Yamada, 1997). Patkai

reported that epinephrine secretion increased during an

enjoyable game (Patkai, 1971). Furthermore, Yamada et

al. reported changes in electroencephalogram readings in

subjects playing TV games (Yamada et al., 1991, 1998).

But no model for investigating the physiological changes

in Pachinko players has yet been put forward.

During various types of exercise, plasma concentrations

of beta-endorphin increases (Mcmurray et al., 1987;

Michael et al., 1987, Sforzo, 1988) and this increase is

related to mood changes and “euphoria” (Markoff et al.,

1982; Janal et al., 1984, Kraemer, 1990). It has been

suggested that so-called experience of “running-high”

could be explained by these changes (Appenzeller, 1981;

Pargman and Baker, 1980). In addition, the habit of

smoking is known to reflect nicotine dependence (DSM

IV 1994). As nicotine induces dopamine secretion in the

“reward-axis” and motivates smoking behavior, nerve

chemical substances such as beta-endorphin modify the

affective states or cognitive demands of smokers

(Pomerleau 1992; Boyadjieva and Sarkar, 1997; Suh et al.,

1996).

Our main purpose was to investigate the changes in

beta-endorphin and catecholamines in Pachinko players.

Immune system responses and heart rate were also

investigated since the increase in beta-endorphin works

as an immunosuppressor, and also activates the immune

system (Northoff and Berg, 1991; Weicker and Werle,

1991), and norepinephrine secreted is correlated with

heart rate (Kondo et al., 1994)

Methods

Subjects and measurement

Six adult men (29–44 years old), who were regular

Pachinko players, were chosen as subjects. They agreed

to cooperate with the experiment, after being informed of

the purpose, contents, methods and risks. Betaendorphin (beta-end), epinephrine (EP), norepinephrine

(NE), dopamine (DA) levels, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD16,

CD56, and NK cell activity and heart rate were measured.

CD3-56 are Cell surface antigens (CD: Cluster

Determinants). CD 3 is the marker of T cell. CD 4 is the

marker of helper T cell. CD 8 is the marker of suppressor

T cell and that of killer T cell. CD 16 and CD 56 are the

markers of NK cell.

Heart rate

Heart rate was measured in a laboratory for baseline

setting. In the Pachinko-center, to measure modification

of cardiac frequency (fc), subjects were equipped with a

portable fc-recording apparatus (VHM 1-016, Bine

Co.with H-R and Interface type 2, Takei Co., Japan), and

a continuous recording of the player’s fc while in the

Pachinko-center was subsequently obtained for analysis

with a microcomputer system (PC-9801 VX NEC, Japan).

Blood

Blood was collected while subjects were sitting in a

chair in a laboratory (L). The next day subjects were

invited to play Pachinko with their own money in a

Pachinko-center (business as usual). They were asked to

play with so-called “Fever-machines”, but they could

freely choose their own favorite models. Blood was

collected from the subjects before they began playing in

the Pachinko-center (P), at Fever-start (FS), at Feverend (FE) and 30 minutes after Fever-end (A30).

Beta-endorphin and catecholamines

Beta-endorphin and catecholamines levels were

analyzed at points L through A30. For beta-endorphin

analysis blood was centrifuged immediately to serum and

analyzed using the RIA-method. Catecholamine levels

were determined using the HPLC-DPA-method.

Immune system substances

Immune system substances in blood were analyzed at

points L and FS.

CD, 3, 4, 8, 16 and 56 counts were analyzed using the

Flowsytometry-method. NK cell activity was analyzed

using the 51-Cr release method (beta-endorphin,

catecholamines, CD and NK cell activity were measured

by SRL Co., Japan).

Statistical Analysis

To calculate significance, paired t-tests were used.

The DA minimum used was 5 pg/ml. For cases measuring

below the minimum, DA values were represented as 5 pg/

ml, and Willcoxon signed-ranks tests were used.파칭코사이트인포

Results

Changes in beta-endorphin and catecholamines

The changes in beta-endorphin and catecholamines

levels are shown in Table 1. The level of beta-endorphin

secreted at P, at FS and at FE increased significantly

compared with that at L (p<0.05). DA secreted at FE

 

A MASTERPIECE OF EMPATHY, INTEGRITY AND FAMILY

 

Earlier this year, I wrote about Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel Home-going in these pages and praised the author’s use of time and generational discord to tell a story that combined politics, history and gender with page-turning appeal. The same compliment could be offered to Min Jin Lee, whose novel Pachinko was one of the most popular choices among writers offering their summer reading selections to The Irish Times.

Pachinko tells the story of Korean immigrants living in Japan between 1910 and today, a family saga that explores the effects of poverty, abuse, war, suicide, and the accumulation of wealth on multiple generations. When the novel opens, we are introduced to Hoonie, “born with a cleft palate and a twisted foot”, who enters into an arranged marriage with Yangjin and despite their age difference – he is 28, she is 15 – a mutual respect and affection builds between them, not least because of their shared love for daughter Sunja.

It is Sunja who will prove the most important character in the novel. As a teenager, she is seduced by a yakuza, Koh Hansu, leaving her pregnant and unmarried, but when a sympathetic young missionary asks for her hand, it seems her disgrace will be avoided.

One of the most endearing elements of Pachinko is how honorable most of the characters are. Husbands love their wives, children respect their parents. Even Koh Hansu, who has played fast and loose with the affections of a young girl, spends decades trying to help Sunja, and although she is dismissive of him in later life, their relationship remains one of the most intriguing in the book.

Impoverished circumstances

But for all the love scattered across the pages, there is hatred too. The monstrous degrees of hardship, disrespect and inhumanity suffered by the Koreans makes for painful reading. They live in impoverished circumstances, are paid less than their Japanese counterparts, are spoken to as if they were dogs and, in one powerful scene, are forced to register time and again as strangers in a land in which many of them have in fact been born. Lee writes of this maltreatment with a stoicism that reflects the fortitude of her characters. Surviving is what matters to them, not human rights.

As the generations continue, we are introduced to Sunja’s sons, Noa, studious and intellectual, and Mozasu, passionate but disinterested in education. The choices both boys make in their lives stand in stark contrast to each other but they pursue their goals with equal conviction, albeit with markedly different results. No spoilers, but suffice to say that as the boys’ lives diverge they arrive at opposing fates. Ultimately, the importance of family honor proves so strong that revelations from the past lead to the most heart-breaking tragedy.

Pachinko itself is a Japanese version of pinball and while pachinko parlors become the family business later in the novel, it also stands as a metaphor for the lives they lead. In a game of pinball, the initial strike of the ball against the flipper determines how the game will play out. For Sunja and her descendants, it is what happens at birth that determines their fate. Over the years they may bounce off the sides of the machine, ricocheting against the bumpers, kickers and slingshots, but there is a sense that fate has decided how their lives will develop from the moment the plunger hits the ball.

Generational sweep

While Pachinko is only Min Jin Lee’s second novel – her first, Free Food for Millionaires, will be reissued later this summer – it is the work of a writer in complete control of her characters and her story and with an intense awareness of the importance of her heritage. In its generational sweep, it recalls John Galsworthy’s The Forsyth Saga, replicating some of that classic novel’s focus on status, money, infidelity and cruelty as it explores the effect of parental decisions on children, and the children of children. As Faulkner put it, “the past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”파칭코사이트인포

This is a long book but is told with such flair and linguistic dexterity that I found myself unable to put it down. Every year, there are a few standout novels that survive long past the hype has died down and the hyperbolic compliments from friends scattered across the dust jacket have been forgotten. Pachinko, a masterpiece of empathy, integrity and familial loyalty, will be one of those novels.

Pachinko and Sensibility

 

I’d like to talk about how the style of narration and the careful way it is filtered through various characters helps Lee to a create story that moves through long periods of time with elegance.

The point of view of the novel is free-associative omniscience. That means the third-person omniscient narrator can align with different characters and can move seamlessly from one to another. This unifies the story over time—it’s always the same voice. But it’s also a voice that can take on some qualities of the different characters with which it aligns. And we feel these shifts in ways that are very subtle and very lovely. 

Let’s look at some physical description that happens in 1932. The narrator is aligned with Isak when he meets Pastor Shin for the first time: 

His white shirt and gray trousers were well pressed. Everything about him seemed controlled and restrained.

A few days later, Isak brings Sunja and Yangjin, his prospective wife and mother-in-law, to meet the pastor, and the narrator slips into the consciousness of the two women as they observe Pastor Shin. 

Pastor Shin was a thin man whose clothes were too big for him. The sleeve hems on his aging black suit were frayed, but the white collar at his throat was clean and well starched. His unwrinkled dark clothes appeared to flatten the bent C-curve of his shoulders.

I love the way the storytelling voice is basically the same and yet it reflects the personality and experience of very different characters. Both passages observe the state of Pastor Shin’s clothes, both note they are ironed, and yet they draw different conclusions. 

Isak is on his way to become an assistant pastor and even before meeting Pastor Shin, Isak believes he will be an ally and mentor. In essence, he has already decided to like him, and so he notices details that reinforce that decision—the neatness of his clothes. Then he interprets what he notices as not only favorable but as upholding Isak’s own particular values of being “controlled and restrained.”

The women, however, have no pre-established reason to like or trust Pastor Shin, and so they give him a more honest assessment. And unlike Isak, who has led a relatively privileged existence up to this point (that changes later), they know that their well being depends on realistically judging character. Thus, it makes sense that they notice negative aspects overlooked by Isak—that the clothes don’t fit, that the hems are frayed.

Noting the fit of the clothes gestures toward judgement of the body beneath them: too thin. And, of course, the assessment of Shin’s posture, as well as the need to look beneath what his clothes hide to find that “C-curve,” show that Sunja and Yangjin are concerned with more than the surface presentation of human beings.

The women also filter their observations through the sensibilities they have developed through their experiences. The two run a boardinghouse and are responsible for the washing and mending of the clothes of their boarders. They are studying Shin’s clothes with a professional eye, noticing not just that they are ironed, as Isak does, but their overall quality and age, as well as how they fit and how well they are cared for. When they call the clothes “starched” instead of “pressed,” it’s significant. It’s a turn more specific and reveals their intimate knowledge of the work required in starching a collar. 

When the women interpret the clothes through their wear and the work that has or has not gone into preserving them, we feel the labor they do every day. The description helps us to understand not only who Pastor Shin is but who the describers are.  

The descriptions of Isak and of Sunja and Yangjin are in the same voice but filtered through different sensibilities. We feel a consistency as we move through the many years and multiple characters of the novel, and yet the voice shifts to reflect different perspectives, too.

Much later in the book, in 1979, we get another description that includes pressed clothing. (The omniscient voice quite often describes clothing but always in ways that reflect a particular character’s sensibility.)

The narrator here is aligned with Etsuko, who is observing her daughter, Hana: 

No longer permed, her hair was straight and its natural color, a reddish black. It was cut in one even length and splayed across her small shoulders. She wore a neatly ironed, white cotton blouse and a dark pleated skirt coming to her knees, with gray wool stockings and flat schoolgirl shoes. She hadn’t dressed like this since she was in primary school. Her stomach was flat, but her bud-like breasts looked fuller; otherwise, there was no way of knowing that she was pregnant.

This voice is consistent with the one of 1932. It’s careful in its detail, simple and clean in its sentence construction. It’s still a voice that believes there is something to be learned through the ways people choose to dress, care for their clothing, and groom their body. And yet this consistent voice is filtered through time and character. The year is marked by the clothes Hana wears, which are of course different. 

More importantly, we can feel the sensibilities of Etsuko, who is mostly estranged from her daughter. 

Hana has only come to visit now because she needs help getting an abortion. I love how we feel both distance and connection in the description. 

Estuko describes not just Hana’s current hair color and texture but slips in information about how it was styled in the past and what is natural to her. These aren’t details that a stranger would know or that a person who saw her all the time would remark upon. Her clothes are treated the same way. Etsuke can’t help but describe her daughter in relation to what she remembers of her from previous visits.

We can also sense Etsuko’s concern for her daughter in the way she looks at her body, straining for clues about her well being. She notices her smallness and remembers her much younger. This makes the reader see Hana as vulnerable but also makes us feel Etsuko’s particular concern for her. And, of course, the pregnancy is on her mind—she can’t help but look for signs. And she can’t help but find the signs even though they are not obvious. 

So, of course, we’re learning about Hana through how she physically looks and the choices she makes in presenting herself to the world. We learn that the storytelling voice is the same it’s always been—one we trust and one that believes we can learn from such details. But most impressive, we also learn about the cares and anxieties of the person giving the description.파칭코사이트인포

This consistent, trustworthy voice and its easy, subtle slips into different brains does a lot of work to makes the reader’s journey through time both smooth and compelling. 

Pachinko Novel

 

Pachinko is the second novel by Korean-American author Min Jin Lee. Published in 2017, Pachinko is an epic historical fiction novel following a Korean family who eventually immigrates to Japan. The character-driven tale features a large ensemble of characters who become subjected to issues of racism and stereotypes, among other events with historical origins in the 20th-century Korean experiences with Japan.

Pachinko was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award for fiction. Apple Inc.'s streaming service Apple TV+ has purchased the rights for a television adaptation of the novel.

The novel takes place over the course of three sections:

Book I, Gohyang/Hometown, begins with the story of Sunja's father, Hoonie and ends with Noa's birth.

Book II, Motherland, begins with Baek Isak's incarceration and ends with Sunja's search of Koh Hansu.

Book III, Pachinko, begins with Noa's new beginnings in Nagano and ends with Sunja's reflections upon everything that has happened to her.

In 1883, in the little island fishing village of Yeongdo, which is a ferry ride from Busan, an aging fisherman and his wife take in lodgers to make a little more money. They have three sons, but only one, Hoonie, with a cleft lip and twisted foot, survives to adulthood. Because of his deformities, Hoonie is considered ineligible for marriage. When he is 27, Japan annexes Korea and many families are left destitute and lacking food. Due to their prudent habits, Hoonie's family's situation is comparatively more stable, and a matchmaker arranges a marriage between Hoonie and Yangjin, the daughter of a poor farmer who had lost everything in the colonized land. Hoonie and Yangjin eventually take over the lodging house.

In the mid 1910s, Yangjin and Hoonie have a daughter named Sunja. After her thirteenth birthday, she is raised solely by her mother Yangjin, her father Hoonie dying from tuberculosis. When Sunja is sixteen, she is pursued by a wealthy fishbroker, Koh Hansu. Sunja becomes pregnant, after which Hansu reveals that he is already married but intends to keep her as his mistress. Ashamed, Sunja reveals the truth to her mother, who eventually confesses it to one of their lodgers, a Christian minister suffering from tuberculosis. Baek Isak, the minister, believes he will die soon due to his many illnesses, and decides to marry Sunja to give her child a name and to give meaning to his life. Sunja agrees to the plan and marries Isak, traveling with him to Osaka to live with Isak's brother and his wife. In Osaka, Sunja is shocked to learn that Koreans are treated poorly and are forced to live in a small ghetto and are only hired for menial jobs. Sunja's brother-in-law, Yoseb, insists on supporting the entire household on his own salary, but Sunja and her sister-in-law Kyunghee come to learn he is in heavy debt due to paying for Sunja and Isak's passage to Osaka. To pay for the cost, Sunja sells a watch given to her by Hansu.

As time goes on, Sunja gives birth to her son Noa and then to a second son she conceives with Isak, Mozasu. While Noa physically resembles Hansu, he is similar in personality to Isak, and seeks a quiet life of learning, reading and academia. Shortly after Mozasu is born, Isak is taken prisoner when a member of his church is caught reciting the Lord's Prayer when they were supposed to be worshiping the emperor. Despite Yoseb's resistance, Sunja begins to work in the market, selling kimchi that she and Kyunghee make. Their small business goes well, but as Japan enters the Second World War and ingredients grow scarce, they struggle to make money. Sunja is eventually approached by the owner of a restaurant, Kim Changho, who pays her and Kyunghee to make kimchi in his restaurant, providing them with financial security. A dying Isak is eventually released from prison, and he is able to briefly reunite with his family.

A few years later, on the eve of the restaurant's closure, Sunja is approached by Hansu, who reveals that he is the actual owner of the restaurant and has been manipulating her family for years, having tracked Sunja down after she sold her watch. He arranges for her to spend the rest of the war in the countryside with Kyunghee and her children, and for Yoseb to wait the rest of the war out working at a factory in Nagasaki. During her time at the farm, Hansu also reunites Sunja with her mother, Yangjin, and eventually returns a permanently crippled Yoseb to the family after he is horrifically burned during the bombings.

The Baek family eventually return to Osaka where Noa and Mozasu resume their studies. The family continues to struggle in spite of Hansu's help. Though they long to return to the North of Korea, where Kyunghee has family, Hansu warns them not to. Noa succeeds in passing the entrance exams for Waseda University. Despite Sunja's resistance, Hansu pays for Noa's entire university education, pretending it is simply because as an older Korean man he feels responsible for helping the younger generation. Meanwhile, Mozasu drops out of school and goes to work for Goro, a man who runs pachinko parlors. Mozasu eventually meets and falls in love with a Korean seamstress, Yumi, who dreams of moving to America. The two marry and have a son, Solomon. Yumi later dies in a car accident, leaving Mozasu to raise their son on his own.

Noa, who has continued his studies and looks up to Hansu as a mentor, accidentally discovers he is his father and learns of his ties to the yakuza. Ashamed of his true heritage and being linked to corrupt blood, he drops out of university and moves to Nagano, intending to work off his debt to Hansu and rid himself of his shameful heritage. He becomes a bookkeeper for a racist pachinko owner who won't hire Koreans and lives undercover using his Japanese name, Nobuo, eventually marrying a Japanese woman and having four children. After having abandoned his family and living sixteen years under a false identity, Noa is tracked down by Hansu at the request of Sunja. Though Hansu warns Sunja not to immediately approach Noa, Sunja refuses to listen to his warnings and begs Noa to reunite with her and the rest of the family. After promising to do so, he commits suicide.

In the meantime, Mozasu has become an extremely wealthy man, owning his own pachinko parlors and taking on a Japanese girlfriend, Etsuko, who refuses to marry him. Hana, Etsuko's troubled teenage daughter from her previous marriage, arrives to stay with the family after learning she is pregnant, later having an abortion. Hana is drawn to Solomon's innocence and they begin a sexual relationship; he quickly falls in love with her, giving her large sums of money when asked, which she uses to run away to Tokyo.

Years later, Solomon, now attending college in New York and dating a Korean-American woman named Phoebe, receives a call from a drunken Hana in Roppongi. He relays the information to Etsuko and Mozasu, who manage to locate her. After graduating college, Solomon takes a job at a British bank and moves back to Japan with Phoebe. His first major client project involves convincing an elderly Korean woman to sell her land in order to clear way for the construction of a golf resort, which he accomplishes by calling in a favor from his father's friend Goro. When the woman dies of natural causes soon after, Solomon's employers claim the deal will attract negative publicity and fire him, citing his father's connections to pachinko and implying that the woman was murdered by a hit.

With newfound resolve and a clearer outlook on life, Solomon breaks up with Phoebe, goes to work for his father's business, and makes amends with a dying Hana in the hospital. Now an elderly woman, Sunja visits Isak's grave and reflects on her life. She finds out from the cemetery groundskeeper that despite the shame Noa felt for his family, Noa had been visiting Isak's grave longer after Noa ceased contact with his family and started a new life in Japan. This gives Sunja the closure and reassurance she needs, and she buries a photo of Noa beside Isak's grave.

Characters

Hoonie — Hoonie is the first character to be introduced in the story, born with a twisted foot and a cleft palate. He meets his wife, Yangjin, on his wedding day and they have three children who die early in life before Sunja, their only surviving daughter, is born. Hoonie dies of tuberculosis when Sunja is thirteen years old.

Sunja — Sunja is the main protagonist of Pachinko, appearing all throughout the novel. Sunja is the daughter of Hoonie and Yangjin, born in Yeongdo, Busan, Korea. Sunja has two children. Sunja's first born, Noa, is fathered by Koh Hansu and her second born, Mozasu, is fathered by Baek Isak.

Baek Isak — Baek Isak is a Protestant minister from Pyongyang, Korea. He is first introduced when he visits Yangjin's boardinghouse on his way to Osaka to move in with his brother, Yoseb. Sickly since birth, Baek Isak struggles with sickness until his death in Osaka.

Kyunghee — Kyunghee is Yoseb's wife and Sunja's best friend and sister-in-law. She plays a large part in helping Sunja support their families in living, helping Sunja prepare Kimchi to sell.

Yoseb — Yoseb is Baek Isak's brother who lives in Osaka, Japan. He works in a factory to support his family. He lives in Ikaino in Osaka, where most Koreans in Osaka are known to live. He receives a job opportunity in Nagasaki in 1945.[2]:202 He becomes very injured in the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki but lives thanks to Koh Hansu's support.

Koh Hansu — Koh Hansu is a Korean man who was adopted into a rich, prominent family in Japan. Using his connections, Koh Hansu continually strives to earn money and control what he can. Hansu meets Sunja in Korea and falls in love, even though he has a wife in Japan. Throughout the novel, Hansu utilizes his influence to look after Sunja and her family, helping to keep them alive and well. Hansu is driven by his love for his only son, Noa.

Noa — Noa is the only son of Koh Hansu and Sunja. He attends Waseda University in Tokyo before moving to Nagano in north Japan to start a new life, away from Hansu and Sunja. He struggles with identity issues stemming from his biological father's associations with the yakuza.

Mozasu — Mozasu is the only son of Baek Isak and Sunja. He faces constant bullying in school and tends to retaliate with force. As a result, he is taken into an apprenticeship at a pachinko parlor as a guard. Eventually, he moves up in the ranks and ends up as an owner of parlors himself. Mozasu marries a girl named Yumi and has one son, Solomon.

Solomon — Solomon is the only son of Mozasu and Yumi. Growing up, Solomon does not face many of the same issues as his father or grandmother, since his father is very wealthy. Torn about what he wants to do with his life, he visits America and eventually decides that he wants to enter the Pachinko business like his father.

Themes

Themes in Pachinko include racism, stereotypes, and power, as well as the motif of the game pachinko. One of Koh Hansu and Sunja's first interactions involves young Japanese boys making fun of Sunja for being Korean, speaking to the discrimination that Koreans experienced within their own borders. This is a recurring theme throughout the book, especially present in the treatment of Koreans in Japanese schools, such as Mozasu's experiences with bullying.

Power is another main theme. Koh Hansu is the main exhibitor of power, using his influence to directly affect Sunja's life throughout the novel. Through this power, Sunja's family is able to survive and thrive while other Koreans around them struggle to support themselves, living in the same neighborhood but in much worse conditions. Through Hansu's influence, Sunja was deeply moved, but also conflictingly aggravated, as she thought she had successfully rid her life of Koh Hansu.

Pachinko is one of the key motifs of the novel. Many times, the novel states that Koreans in Japan are often associated with the pachinko business. Lee has said that the novel's title, which was originally set to be Motherland, was changed to Pachinko when, in her interviews, Koreans seemed to relate back to the pachinko business.

Historical context

Pachinko takes place between the years of 1910 and 1989, a period that included the Japanese occupation of Korea and World War II. As a historical novel, these events play a central role in Pachinko, influencing the characters' decisions like Sunja's moving to Japan.파칭코사이트인포

In an interview, Lee referenced that the history of Korean-Japanese relationships are one of the most obvious displays of issues surrounding racism and exclusion outside the norms of the west.

Reception and awards

The book received strong reviews including those from The Guardian,NPR, The New York Times,The Sydney Morning Herald, The Irish Times, and Kirkus Reviews,and is on the "Best Fiction of 2017" lists from Esquire, Chicago Review of Books,Amazon.com, Entertainment Weekly,[citation needed] the BBC, The Guardian, and Book Riot. In a Washington Post interview, writer Roxane Gay called Pachinko her favorite book of 2017. The book was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017.

Pachinko was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award for fiction.