'Pachinko': 5 differences between the book and Apple TV+ show

Warning: This article contains major spoilers.

"Pachinko," the highly acclaimed Apple TV+ series based on Min Jin Lee's national bestseller of the same name, wraps up its first season on April 29 with its series finale.

The TV series, which is told in three different languages (Korean, Japanese and English), follows four generations of a Korean family in Korea and Japan throughout the 20th century.

While the series created by showrunner Soo Hugh stays mostly true to the book, there are, of course, a few notable exceptions.

Here's a look at the five major differences between the book and the TV show, which was renewed for another season ahead of its season one finale.

1. There's a non-linear timeline in the show

The first major difference is the narrative structure. The book unfolds in chronological order, while the series functions on a non-linear timeline, interweaving events both past and future from the novel.

The first generation follows the couple Hoonie and Yangjin; the second, their daughter Sunja, her former lover Koh Hansu and her husband Baek Isak; the third, Sunja's children, Noa and Mozasu; and the fourth, Mozasu's son, Solomon.

The TV adaptation largely cycles between moments centered around the novel’s central character Sunja, who is portrayed by three different actresses at three different stages in her life.

Oscar-winning actor Youn Yuh-jung plays Sunja as an older woman, while Kim Min-ha and Jeon Yu-na portrays Sunja as a young adult and child, respectively.

2. Phoebe doesn’t exist in the show

Both the TV show and the novel explore how Solomon (Jin Ha), Sunja’s grandson, navigates early adulthood across the United States, Japan and South Korea in the 1980s. But missing from the adaptation is his Korean American girlfriend: Phoebe.

Solomon met Phoebe while attending Columbia University in New York City. She later follows him to Tokyo where they intend to wed, but when a business deal falls through at his company, Solomon is broken up by Phoebe, quits his job and works for his father’s (Mozasu’s) pachinko business.

In the TV series, Phoebe’s character appears to be replaced by Solomon’s female co-worker, Naomi (Anna Sawai). While nothing romantic comes out of their friendship, the two find comfort with confiding in one another as colleagues throughout the show's first season.

3. Kyunghee's fate is different in the show

Kyunghee — Sunja's sister-in-law — became one of Sunja's lifelong friends and confidante as the two struggled to navigate life as Korean women in Japan.

In fact, at the end of the novel, after she visits her father's and husband's grave in Korea, Sunja returns to where, as Lee writes in the last sentence of the book, "Kyunghee would be waiting for her at home."

The series, however, depicts Kyunghee (Jung Eun-chae) dying of an undisclosed illness in Japan, which prompts Sunja to go on a trip to visit her father's grave.

4. Bokhee's fate is also different

As a teenager, Sunja befriended two orphaned sisters, Bokhee and Dokhee, who worked as servant girls at her mother's boarding house in the small fishing village of Yeongbo, South Korea.

The siblings only made a brief appearance at the beginning of the novel, but their fates remained unclear after Sunja married Baek and moved to Osaka, Japan.

In the novel, several decades after Sunja left her hometown, Sunja's mother cries while remembering Bokhee and Dokhee, who she surmises were exploited by Japanese soldiers while Korea was under Japanese colonial rule.

The show, however, leaves no room for interpretation. Instead, it includes a scene revealing that Bokhee had in fact survived many years after Sunja left from Korea to Osaka.

In a stroke of serendipity, the two long lost friends are reunited as Sunja attempts to find her father's grave while visiting Korea following Kyunghee's death.

During their emotional reunion, Bokhee explains what happened to her and Dokhee after Sunja got married and left the country, later detailing the tragedy of how her sister died.

5. Noa's character is absent from the show

And perhaps most notably and largely absent from the show is Sunja's firstborn: Noa.

Noa — the son of Sunja and Koh and the adoptive son of Baek — grew up in Osaka where he excelled in school and tried to blend into Japanese culture as much as he could.

Noa later was accepted into a prestigious university in Tokyo, which Koh offers to pay for under the guise of an older Korean man giving back to a younger generation — all without his son knowing the real identity of his paternal father.

When he finally discovers the truth, Noa drops out of school, begins a new life under a different name and becomes estranged from his family for 16 years. But after Koh tracks him down and Sunja visits him, Noa takes his own life.

The first season of the TV series only features Noa growing up as a child, whose death is only mentioned in passing throughout the show.