TOKYO — "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back," read the letters on an usher's yellow T-shirt, just before the doors to the cavernous Budokan opened Tuesday night and the usher was a helpless speck buffeted about by a lemming swarm of Japanese music lovers.

And back Frank Sinatra was. Emerging once more from counterfeit retirement, he first quieted an impatient and unruly crowd of about 13,000 by sheer magnetism, and personality.

Then swung into something easy and familiar, "Come Fry With Me," a bit of linguistic levity that went neatly over the heads of most of the economy class patrons who paid top prices of about $23. He was loudly cheered — even though most of his listeners were clearly too young to recall the Sinatra of another day, the wispy, malnourished crooner who sent bobbysoxers into fainting fits and was fair game for comedians who imitated him by placing a hat on a microphone.

Sinatra is older (58) and fleshier now. His voice has plainly lost much of its range and resonance — as evidenced by a low-keyed rendition of "Old Man River" — and he had to battle wind tunnel acoustics in an arena that was built for wrestling and prizefighting.

Yet his performance was totally effortless and professional. Sinatra, in a way, is remindful of Sugar Ray Robinson — a fighter who could climb into a ring, give what looked like an indolent and half-hearted performance and still look superb. So it is with Sinatra — one of the most superlative entertainers alive.

Whether Sinatra performed casually or vibrantly, the effect was the same. "I Get a Kick Out of You" was mellow and well-phrased. The audience got a kick out of the number. By the time Sinatra launched into, "I've Got the World on a String," he had the crowd dangling by his little finger.

In moody darkness, ringed by shafts of spotlight, Sinatra flawlessly rendered, "You Will Be My Music," one of the songs associated with his so-called retirement in mid-1971. He basked briefly in a burst of bravos, then had the audience clapping along with a more recent hit, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."

"If" was beautiful and "Sunshine Of My Life" was sung with personality and spirit. And Sinatra once more answered rousing cheers with a dignified, parliamentary bow.

With the help of an interpreter, Sinatra tried a little humorous patter that might have gone over better in a nightclub. "My gardener sends his regards," he said to light applause and a titter of laughter — and got a better hand when he said there would not be another 12-year break (he last appeared here in 1962) in performances in Tokyo.

Asking the audience to assume the role of a sympathetic bartender listening to a heartbroken drunk, he again turned up the volume of the crowd noise with a fine version of "Angel Eyes."

His last number was what he called the National Anthem — "My Way." It was his song and no one can sing it better. Then, without an encore, he slipped down a red-carpeted ramp and briefly ran a gauntlet of grasping hands.

There was also "Don't Worry 'Bout Me."

"Just say that our little show is over and so the story ends ..." But it appears that there are quite a few pages still left in the Sinatra story. Perhaps it is as the late Pacific Stars and Stripes Entertainment Editor Al Ricketts once said — real entertainers need applause like plasma and never really retire. And Frank Sinatra — a far and somewhat muted cry from the thin crooner on the stage of the Paramount — was clearly alive and well in Tokyo Tuesday night.

Sinatra will perform aboard the carrier Midway at 2 p.m. Friday for crew members, their families and guests. The ship is berthed at Yokosuka NB.