The latest adult anime from the director of the equally thought-provoking 'Perfect Blue' and 'Millennium Actress' is about a dream therapist who accesses patients' minds using a newly-invented, iPodesque device for sharing and playing back unconscious images. Several of the experimental machines are stolen, leading to the bleeding through of the unknown thief's hangups and desires into everybody else's dreams. The visual imagination, draughtsmanship and animation are stunning, especially in the convincingly psychedelic, vivid, non sequitur dream sequences. It also has a suitably wonky soundtrack of vocoded, mutant J-pop. The only downer is that the extras on the UK release are perfunctory and uninformative. Even the commentary by the director, producer and composer is a waste of time; they spend most of the film giggling at each other like schoolgirls.

This graphic memoir describes the author's childhood and adolescence with a brother who suffered from severe epilepsy. The increasingly desperate and irrational efforts of their hippie parents to find a treatment that works (or, in the end, just a moment's respite) are depicted with the painful honesty of a child combined with the analytic equanimity of adult hindsight. The expressionistic, woodcut-like images are evocative, depicting epilepsy as a crocodilian monster that stalks almost every page; the conflicting emotions of young David himself give rise to an unsettling chorus of bird-headed mentors and ghostly lurkers. Something so personal is bound to be a tough read at times, but anyone who ever felt afflicted and helpless (or loves someone who does) will also find a lot to love in this book. Possibly some inspiration and comfort, too; a rare thing on the shelves of Waterstones these days...

Do you enjoy the kind of American alterna-rock where the singer alternately yelps like a dog and squawks like a parrot? Do you also like old school, pre-Britpop indie? Then you are in luck, my friend, because Johnny Marr has- for inexplicable reasons we won't bother questioning- joined Modest Mouse as (jangly) guitarist and co-writer. Millions of American bloggers will cry out in horror that anyone should say so, but this isn't an earth-shattering record, and neither of their others have been either. It's just nice, and it'll grow on you if you like this kind of thing. I do.

The collected short stories of HP Tinker might look small and slight at first, but he's a grower not a shower. They often read like the confabulations a sacked editor of a weekend colour supplement might scrawl on their walls and ceiling after they'd been detained under the Mental Health Act, alluding to Dorothy Parker and Kate Winslett as if they're equal and equivalent, spinning tales about protagonists as convincingly egomaniacal, self-loathing and ridiculous as any real celebrity. This is a good thing. He also has a witty knack for insulting the finger puppets that currently pass as intellectuals or writers in Britain (e.g. "the Irish poet and critic Tom Paulin"). Anyone who doesn't read this book is a fool to themselves. Anyone who reads it but says they don't like it, they don't understand it or that they never once laughed out loud should shortly thereafter be requested to peel themselves away from your existence permanently. Do yourself a favour and spend an afternoon (or a dirty weekend) with this book.

Reading this again after many years I'm struck by how brilliantly deranged it is: dialogue, storyline, characters, the lot. But the hallmark of good writing is that while you're inside the story it all makes sense. Some of the oddities obviously arise from the cultural and chronological distance of 150 years; the many overwrought deaths, insanities and afflictions seem less melodramatic when you know that of the six Brontë children, only three reached adulthood but died thirtyish, leaving Charlotte to struggle on alone for ten years before dying at barely forty, the only one married. But Emily's lone novel makes it bracingly clear that she was a mentalist genius of storytelling who couldn't bear to discuss pregnancy but had no qualms about writing at least one beating and/or imprisonment for every female character, pet executions, ghosts, grieving heads smashed against trees, slashed wrists on broken windows and even an episode of necrophile sexy time at the local graveyard. As for this being the template for subsequent romance novels... well, kind of. Except in this case it's a unique and mutually destructive romance between two of the most hateful, unlikeable sociopaths in print, with a lethal burst radius about thirty years wide. Being one of those English canon books means WH is more often referenced and discussed than actually read, which is a shame. Don't think canon. Think crazy.

An album with the dynamics of a bonsai Sigur Rós; evocative of sitting up all night crying and then seeing a beautiful dawn. Individual songs follow this trajectory too, especially the seven lovely minutes of 'Oetsu to Kanki no Nanoriuta' (the band themselves render the title in endearing Japlish as 'Given Song by Sob and Joy'.) A central ray of sunshine is the anomalously catchy 'Umbarepa!' whose equally atypical exclamation mark is like a cypher for the whole song. It's less Sigur Rós, more like Can if they'd accidentally been locked in a primary school's music cupboard over the weekend with the glockenspiels and a catering-sized jar of instant coffee. My Japanese isn't good enough to know what- if anything- she's singing about, but it most closely resembles a lyrical version of the "Lorem Ipsum" dummy text designers sometimes use. It's a particular pleasure to recommend a Japanese band because they're genuinely good and not just because they seem bonkers.

Zatoichi is iconic in Japan, similar to Britain's James Bond or Doctor Who with regard to his longevity and virtually perfect reflection of whatever the zeitgeist may be. Like the 21st century Doctor, Takeshi's version of the blind, Edo period swordsman cheekily incorporates shameless fanservice and unrepentant liberties with the source material, while retaining the character's essential core; this is where, on all three counts, the recent Bond reboot went so horribly astray. You know many characters will die in a film like this, but it's no celebration of violence. Whether begotten from greed, ambition, love or revenge, violence- including that of the protagonist- disrupts and corrodes the continuity of ordinary life and the kindness of a stable community. An insistent, rhythmic and strangely appropriate electronic score underlines this idea, as does the film's often-mentioned and genuinely joyous coda. Visually lovely, too, in its own muted and unflashy way. Almost every shot looks as if it would make a perfect still image despite the realism of the staging and dynamism of the action in what is very nearly a flawless film.

This one, as with the band's previous 'Neon Golden', is like being wrapped up warm and walking through a city in winter with an eloquent friend whose relationships never quite work out. I enjoy Radiohead as much as the next person of that certain type who enjoys Radiohead, but while their fusion of guitars, solid songwriting and electronic foundations is highly skilled it's rarely subtle. Compared to 'The Devil, You + Me', 'In Rainbows' is like getting punched in the face. The Notwist are also not afraid of catharsis, both lyrically and musically, conveying the feeling of suffering and passing beyond, as at the end of 'Gloomy Planets' or the cheerful/rueful acknowledgement that everyone in town hates the couple (or trio) of the title song. Radiohead seem so traumatised by popular affection for the likes of 'Street Spirit' or <gasp> 'Creep', that they don't want anything more to do with catharsis. Plus as a chorus the menacing/pathetic phrase "I would never beat you up" is more Radiohead than Radiohead, but simultanously tells you just about everything you need to know about the unique personality and lyrical world of this underrated band. Get your catharsis here.

If you thought the Trip-Hop tag was annoying in the late 90s, imagine how irritating it must have been to be Portishead. And with every passing year without new material there must have been mounting pressure- if only from themselves- not to come back with a load of old dinner party soundtrack material. It's unlikely that anyone will be chilling out to their latest crop of songs, which owe rather more to the obsessive synth lines of 80s horror film soundtracks and head-nodding Krautrock than to any of Portishead's previously displayed influences. It's still unclear what most of the lyrics are about, if indeed they're about anything, but clearly Beth Gibbons is a lass of profound emotions and she always sounds pretty intense about whatever it is she's on about. There's still a wonderful and vaguely creepy timelessness about Portishead. 'Third' could be a record from thirty years in the past or thirty years in the future. One thing, though: 'Deep Water' is ghastly, just randomly and grauitously bad. What's going on?