Noa's Character

 One character I am pretty interested in is Noa. Noa grew up hating Koreans because he wanted to integrate as much as possible into the community. His classmates probably hated Koreans, as did the rest of the Japanese community, so he was probably constantly flooded with comments on how Japanese people were better than Korean people. While many Koreans in the story were treated poorly by the Japanese, Noa’ reaction was the only time we saw someone who completely assimilated into Japanese culture and dropped their entire culture. 


Noa was so indoctrinated by his classmates and school that he decided to run away from home when he found out his blood had the blood of a yakuza. Noa dropped all his dreams and desires of going into Waseda just because he found out that he had yakuza blood, that was how deep his hatred of Koreans went. When he found out he was the son of “the worst type of Korean”, he acted like he did not deserve to live life anymore. 


Another part of Noa’s character I find interesting was how he was willing to become a worker in a Pachinko parlor. I believe this is partly because he finally accepted the fact he is Korean and partly because he believes this is the type of job he deserves. His belief that he is the son of yakuza forced him to accept the fact he could never truly become Japanese even though he dropped everything because his blood is Korean, and at that the worst type of Korean. After accepting this, I believe he allowed himself to work at a Pachinko parlor like other Koreans.


Comments

  1. Hilary LeMarch 11, 2023 at 6:53 PM

    Hey Paulos! It's fascinating how Noa's desire to assimilate into Japanese culture led him to reject his own Korean identity so completely. His reaction to discovering his yakuza heritage really shows how great his hatred of Koreans was. It's also interesting how his willingness to work at a Pachinko parlor represents a sort of acceptance of his Korean identity. It really shows how complex identity can be.

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