Ritsuko Nakayama

Ritsuko Nakayama (中山律子, 1942 to 2026) was a Japanese professional ten-pin bowler whose televised perfect game in 1970 turned her into a national celebrity and helped drive the great Japanese bowling boom of the late 1960s and 1970s. Affectionately known as "Sawayaka Ritsuko-san" (Refreshing Ritsuko) after the jingle of a Kao Feather shampoo commercial, she was a member of the first class of Japanese women professional bowlers in 1969, holding licence No. 2, and went on to win 33 professional titles. Later in life she became the first woman to lead the Japan Professional Bowling Association (JPBA), serving as its president from 2004 to 2012 and then as honorary president.

Nakayama was born on 12 October 1942 in Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, the fifth of seven children, and moved as a small child to Kagoshima, her family's home prefecture. She grew up there and became a volleyball player at Kagoshima Girls' High School, competing at the national high school championships and the National Sports Festival. After graduating in 1961 she joined Asahi Seiki, a company in Aichi Prefecture, to play for its corporate volleyball team, but the team was disbanded during her second year and she returned to Kagoshima.

Back home, a friend invited her to go bowling. She was about 20 and, by her own account, had not bowled before. She took to the sport quickly, finishing as runner-up at a Kyushu tournament and at the 1967 All Japan Open, and in 1968 she moved to Tokyo after being recruited by the Tokyo Tower Bowling Center. In June 1969 Japan held its first professional test for women. Nakayama led for three days before Kayoko Suda overtook her on the final day; Suda received licence No. 1 and Nakayama licence No. 2. The two became lifelong rivals, often summed up as "Nakayama for popularity, Suda for strength."

Success came at once. Nakayama won the event marking the birth of women's professional bowling in September 1969 and in March 1970 became the first champion of the All Japan Women's Professional Bowling Championship. On 21 August 1970, at Fuchu Star Lanes in Tokyo, she rolled the first sanctioned perfect game (300) by a Japanese woman professional, in a monthly tournament final against Fusae Unno that was being recorded for NET TV's "Ladies Challenge Bowl." The broadcast reached a huge audience and made her a household name. She later recalled that her taxi had been involved in a minor collision on the way to the lanes, and that she had decided to take it easy that day, which loosened her swing. That year she received the Distinguished Service Award at the Japan Professional Sports Awards and served as a guest judge on the 21st NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen.

In 1971 she appeared in the Kao Feather shampoo commercial whose song, "Ritsuko-san, Ritsuko-san, sawayaka Ritsuko-san," became a catchphrase. That July she set a women's world record three-game series of 824 (268, 257, 299). She appeared as herself in the TBS drama "Utsukushiki Challenger" (Beautiful Challenger), published books on bowling technique and an essay collection, and was in constant demand on television bowling shows. Her red Tokyo Tower bowling shirt became a trademark. She collected 33 professional titles, the last in 1980, and recorded two sanctioned perfect games and one 800 series.

She married in November 1974 and gave birth in 1978. Years of heavy competition took a toll, with shoulder and knee injuries, collagen disease in 1995 and lymphoma, which she overcame. She stepped back from full-time competition but continued to compete and promote the sport into the 1990s. When Suda died in 1995, Nakayama read a eulogy at her funeral, and in 1998 she succeeded to the presidency of the Japan Ladies Bowling Club (JLBC), which Suda had founded.

In 2004 Nakayama became the first woman president of the JPBA. She served four terms over eight years, helped launch the televised women's league "Bowling Revolution P League" in 2006, and became honorary president in 2012. She was inducted into the JPBA Professional Bowling Hall of Fame in 2017, and in 2018 she handed the JLBC presidency to fellow first-generation pro Rie Ishii and became its honorary president. Her younger brother, Toru Nakayama, is a professional golfer.

Nakayama died on 7 November 2026, aged 84, after a period of illness. The JPBA announced her death the same day and said funeral arrangements would be confirmed later. Tributes across Japanese media remembered her as the smiling face of the bowling boom and the woman who showed a nation what a perfect game looked like.