二十年後のわたし

わたしは日本で会社員になりますから、日本にいます。とうきょうでおっとといっしょにあまり大きくないうちがあります。こどもがいませんから、毎週、しゅうまつにわたしはともだちとびじゅつかんやカラオケへ行きます。そして毎週の日曜日にうちのちかくのこうえんをおっととさんぽします。わたしはりょうりをするのが好きですが、あまりじょうずじゃありません。おっとのりょうりはわたしのよりおいしいです。まちのせいかつはいそがしいですが、たのしいです。

Revised Katakana Literary Works

笑み
ともだちの
なまえをいえば
エミうかぶ
English: If I say the name of my friend, a smile appears on my face.
I chose to change 'emi' to katakana to emphasize the happiness and cheeriness of a smile.


心
わすれない
ココロのなかに
すべてある
English: Do not forget, within your heart everything exists.
I chose to change kokoro to katakana to emphasize the heart. I imagine parents telling this to their children as an equivalent to "You can do anything" or "I see the future in your eyes."  


暗い
あかるいめ
なにがみえるか
クライです
English: Bright eyes, can you see anything, "kurai" 
Someone asks "Bright Eyes" a question and in the third line "Bright Eyes" responds. I intentionally changed 'kurai' to katakana to give it a double meaning. くらい or クライ are equally dark responses because the last line can either mean "(I see) darkness" or "(I see) crying." There is also the option that Bright Eyes does not respond and it the questioner who says "It is dark".

Revised Katakana Analysis

Source

For this advertisement, the name of the drink is オロナミンC (Oronamin C) and the slogan is 元気ハツラツ (Genki Hatsuratsu = Healthy Cheerful/Full of Life). The name of the drink is understandably in Katakana to give it emphasis and make it look cooler and the name sounds like a combination of loan words. The "min C" at the end might have come from vitamin C. After looking into the history of this product, I saw that I was correct in my assumption about vitamin C and found out that the "Oro" comes from an earlier product, Oronine H Ointment, made by the same company, the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company. They hoped this new product would generate a familiarity with it's audience. It is slightly similar to the way apple places a lower case "i" before each product.

The slogan is more interesting because it is slightly redundant and grammatically incorrect and hatsuratsu is a Japanese word that has been written in katakana. Both genki and hatsuratsu are adjectives meaning healthy and lively but hatsuratsu has more emphasis on cheerfulness. When written in katakana, it has even more emphasis. Another reason for using katakana is onomatopoeia. Hatsuratsu even sounds like other  Japanese onomatopoeia like "gaku gaku" (tremble tremble), "pata pata" (pitter patter), or "kachi kochi" (body tensing up). You can't really hear a body tensing up, but there is a sound associated with the action. Likewise, it is possible that "hatsu ratsu" is the sound one thinks of when they think of a healthy person. 

Textbooks are different in explaining katakana because there are so many different ways to  explain them and there is no official explanation of usage. It also seems like the usage of katakana is always changing, therefore textbooks written at different times will explain katakana in the context of the time it was written.