Luffy’s latest adventure is a (sonic) blast from the past.

Fans of One Piece will tell you that protagonist Luffy’s greatest strengths are his indomitable optimism and charismatic draw that turns not just strangers, but even one-time adversaries into true-blue friends and allies of the Straw Hat Pirates. It’s impossible to deny, however, that whether they eventually become friends or not, Luffy’s hero’s journey also often involves him punching people really, really hard, and it’s this part that the new One Piece arcade game is going to focus on.

The official One Piece Twitter account has announced that One Piece Do-n Strike is currently in development. Don’t bother looking for a joystick, though, because this is a game you play by throwing actual punches.

So how does that work? Towards the front of the cabinet is a protrusion that pops up, shaped like a floor-mounted striking bag. After putting a coin in the machine, you slip on a boxing glove (righties and lefties are both accommodated), then, when prompted to by the on-screen text/graphics, you punch the target as hard as you can. The machine then measures how hard the impact was and converts that into a numerical value used to calculate how much damage you did to your on-screen opponent. The preview image shows space to list the results of three punches, suggesting you’ve got three strikes in which to topple your foe.

Now, cultured gamers looking at these images are no doubt immediately thinking of Sonic Blast Man, a 1990 Japanese arcade release by developer Taito, now a subsidiary of Square Enix. Sonic Blast Man used a similar setup to One Piece Do-n Strike’s, but with an American comic book-style hero punching out giant monsters, criminals, and asteroids, among other threats to humanity.

▼ Sonic Blast Man being played

The history of punching games in Japanese arcades goes back even further, to Namco’s Knock Down in 1981, but it, and its 1991 sequel Knock Down 90, were a bit more like carnival games than video games, since they simply display a numeric score with no video monitor for graphics, characters, or story.

▼ Knock Down 90 (the Hajime no Ippo illustration has been added by the arcade operator, and wasn’t an official part of the game’s branding)

Most recently, in spring of 2024 Genda GiGO Entertainment, the successor to Sega’s arcade operation business, partnered with Japanese mixed martial arts promotion organization BreakingDown to produce BreakingDown Hard Puncher Arcade. The front section for the cabinet looks to be an exact match for One Piece Do-n Strike, but the newer game will have a vertically oriented monitor.

As for One Piece Do-n Strike’s title, don, elongated to do-n for extra emphasis here, is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a forceful impact (it’s the same don that’s part of the kabedon/wall pound romantic trope that appears in anime and manga). There’s a bit of wordplay going on too, as the teaser image shows Donquixote Doflamingo as the player’s opponent, and the game’s announcement says he’ll also be the available enemy in the game’s upcoming arcade location test, the date for which has yet to be revealed.

There’s also no word as to when the game’s final version will get a general release, but there are plans to live-stream the location test on YouTube here. Considering there’s a permanent One Piece gym now open in Japan, maybe some of its bodybuilding members will show up at the test to test their strength.

Source: Twitter/@Eiichiro_Staff via Anime News Network/Anita Tai
Top image: Twitter/@Eiichiro_Staff
Insert images: Twitter/@Eiichiro_Staff, Wikipedia/物売り
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