A record 54 women won seats in Japan's weekend election but female parliamentary representation still remains low by developed world standards at 11 percent, results showed on Monday.

The opposition Democratic Party scored a historic win over the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Sunday's vote fielding a high-profile group of female candidates to take on elderly ruling-party bosses.

Female lawmakers held just nine percent of seats in the outgoing House of Representatives, giving Japan the developed world's lowest level of female representation in politics, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Women secured 43 seats in the 2005 elections ? a record at the time ? when then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi won a landslide victory by tapping women candidates in a media-savvy campaign.

This time around, the DPJ deployed a group of female candidates the media dubbed the "Princess Corps" against heavyweights of the LDP and its sole coalition partner New Komeito, which also experienced big losses.

The DPJ scored a major victory with former singer and television reporter Ai Aoki, who defeated New Komeito's 63-year-old leader Akihiro Ota in Tokyo.

"I was relieved to be able to produce the result," Aoki later told reporters. "It's very significant that I won in a constituency that was symbolic for the coalition government."

In southern Japan, former defence minister Fumio Kyuma (68) lost against Eriko Fukuda (28) who gained prominence in a legal battle against the state over tainted blood products that made many people contract hepatitis.

Kyuma stepped down as minister in 2007 after sparking anger by suggesting the US atomic bombings of Japan were inevitable to end World War II. His district included parts of Nagasaki, one of the two cities bombed.