Season 2 of Pachinko launches on Apple TV+ with a critics rating of 100%

If I, as an Apple TV+ subscriber since the service launched in late 2019, were tasked with ranking the best of everything the service has released so far, it would certainly be quite a challenge – although there is no question as to which title would have a permanent place at number 1. Without disparaging the great TV shows and movies we have gotten so far from Apple’s small but mighty streamer, but Pachinko is not only by far the best thing Apple has done so far.

This dreamy, cross-generational adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s award-winning 2017 novel is also one of the best things I’ve ever seen on television, period. You’re never the same after watching a show like this, not unlike the way traveling outside of your home country for the first time can be a transformative, eye-opening experience.

I’m probably laying it on a bit thick here, but I don’t care. Pachinko offers a level of storytelling excellence that is almost never found on the small screen. And you don’t have to take my word for it either; the highly anticipated second season of the series has already earned a perfect 100% critics’ score ahead of its release later this week (on 23 August).

Pachinko’s New episodes pick up the story of the series’ matriarch, Sunja, in Osaka in 1954. She must make dangerous decisions about her family’s survival during World War II, while her grandson Solomon tries to make a fresh start in Tokyo in 1989. In my opinion, though, you don’t really need to understand the series’ backstory to appreciate it. At its core, this is a story about identity, home and family, and the unstoppable pull of inheritance that drives you forward in life, whether you realize it or not.

Pachinko is for anyone who has ever felt helpless, disconnected from their tribe, from their place, from their sense of belonging. If you can relate to that feeling, then I tell you: once you immerse yourself in this beautiful show, you are there.

I would also like to say something about Minha Kim’s acting in Pachinko. She’s a revelation as the young adult version of Sunja, her face a topography of beauty and pain. She’s absolutely mesmerizing every time she’s on screen. And as for my favorite moment in the series so far, it was the scene in Season 1 where Solomon dances in the rain to a cover of The Cures. Between the days. From then on, my fan of the show became an evangelist.

The title, by the way, refers to the pinball-like Japanese gambling game – and while Sunja’s family eventually makes pachinko a livelihood, the game is also a metaphor for the randomness of life. It’s about the slim chances of success and the fight for survival against overwhelming odds. I can’t stress this enough: Pachinko is an absolute masterpiece.