Is Pachinko Based On A True Story? How Much Is Real

screenrant.com:

Pachinko tells the tale of a Korean family who emigrated to Japan in the early 20th century, but is it based on a true story? The short answer is no. That said, while Pachinko is entirely fictional, much like other historical period dramas such as 1883, Vikings, and Downton Abbey, Pachinko is based on the real lives and experiences of the people that existed in its different time periods.

In the early 20th century, a young girl named Sunja and her family live comfortable but ultimately uneasy lives as second class citizens in their own country in Japanese-occupied Korea. Decades later, they join the thousands of Koreans who emigrate to Japan, and eventually become wealthy in the '80s by running pachinko parlors, a Japanese pinball-type game popular in Tokyo. These juxtaposed timelines tell the multi-generational story of not just Sunja's family, but also that of many other Korean families living in Japan after the war. In many ways, the collective experiences of Sunja and her family are a microcosm of the Korean diaspora, a summation of the lives and struggles of three different generations of Koreans.

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Although Pachinko is a latecomer in the recent surge of series adaptations of popular books, unlike most adaptations, Pachinko touches on a part of Asian history that's rarely tackled in the West: the lives of Zainichi Koreans, the second-largest minority group in Japan. Zainichi is the collective term for Koreans who came to Japan before 1945 – from Japanese-occupied Korea – along with the descendants of these immigrants. Throughout the 20th century, Zainichi Koreans faced discrimination in Japan, and were mostly limited to “dirty, dangerous, and demeaning”