Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pachinko, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Family
Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Summary
Analysis
Noa goes to Nagano because one of his childhood teachers had spoken fondly of the place. To a chatty café waiter, Noa introduces himself as Nobuo Ban—a Japanese name. The waiter suggests he try Nagano’s best pachinko parlor for a job. The manager, Takano, doesn’t hire foreigners, but the waiter says that won’t be an issue for Noa, whom he assumes is Japanese.
To begin his new life, Noa travels to a city where he has no prior personal connections and immediately starts going by a Japanese name. These steps signal the lengths Noa’s willing to go in order to sever ties to his old life, but they also fulfill his childhood dream of becoming Japanese.
Themes
Noa meets Takano and talks him into giving him a job. Noa has secretly dreamed of being an English teacher in a private school, and he’s stunned to find himself working in the same business as high school dropout Mozasu. Noa gets to work and quickly wins over Takano. The parlor owner suspects that Noa is Korean, but he figures that as long as nobody finds out, it’s okay.
Noa’s abandonment of his literary dreams, after so much hard work, shows how desperate he is to start fresh. Given his scorn for the pachinko industry, his willingness to seek a job there is likewise shocking. But his diligence quickly pays off, and he continues to succeed in passing as Japanese.
Themes
