When is the katakana form of wo (ヲ) used?


I'm pretty new to Japanese, and I've been trying to learn hiragana and
katakana. I know that in hiragana, wo (を) is used only for as an object
particle, and it is always pronounced like o (お).

This made me wonder what the katakana form (ヲ) would be used for, since o (オ)
would be used for anything with an "o" sound. Even if a direct object is
written in katakana, the o that follows would still be in hiragana, correct?




Some of the posts indicate that ヲ is very rare. This isn't really the case. In
general Japanese usage, yes, it is very rare. However, if you have all-
katakana text, then you will _always_ find を written as ヲ.

All-katakana text might be encountered in child-oriented media such as video
games. I have seen plenty of old games that use only katakana, such as
[Downtown Nekketsu
Monogatari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_City_Ransom) (known in the US
as River City Ransom), [Moero!! Junior
Basket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoops_\(video_game\)) (known in the US
as Hoops), and the original MSX/NES version of [Metal
Gear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_\(video_game\)#Famicom_.2F_NES).
ヲ is used in all of them. (Some of these games used all kana due to technical
limitations, but sometimes all-kana text is a stylistic choice.)

In manga and video games, robots will often speak in katakana, much like using
an all-caps "digital" font in English.

Transcriptions of morse code, telegrams, etc. will also use all-katakana text
and therefore ヲ. So usage of ヲ is alive and well, it's just that the contexts
where it's appropriate are infrequent except in certain media.




Some of the posts indicate that ヲ is very rare. This isn't really the case. In
general Japanese usage, yes, it is very rare. However, if you have all-
katakana text, then you will _always_ find を written as ヲ.

All-katakana text might be encountered in child-oriented media such as video
games. I have seen plenty of old games that use only katakana, such as
[Downtown Nekketsu
Monogatari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_City_Ransom) (known in the US
as River City Ransom), [Moero!! Junior
Basket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoops_\(video_game\)) (known in the US
as Hoops), and the original MSX/NES version of [Metal
Gear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_\(video_game\)#Famicom_.2F_NES).
ヲ is used in all of them. (Some of these games used all kana due to technical
limitations, but sometimes all-kana text is a stylistic choice.)

In manga and video games, robots will often speak in katakana, much like using
an all-caps "digital" font in English.

Transcriptions of morse code, telegrams, etc. will also use all-katakana text
and therefore ヲ. So usage of ヲ is alive and well, it's just that the contexts
where it's appropriate are infrequent except in certain media.

