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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?
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katakana
When is the katakana form of wo (ヲ) used?
The use of katakana ヲ is quite rare indeed; as you surmise, the use as a
particle is Hiragana in modern Japanese. In older dialects, Katakana was used
for particles as well, however, and you can see ヲ in use there. In modern
times, it's also occasionally used for ironic or stylistic purposes, such as
in [ヲタク](http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%A5%F2%A5%BF%A5%AF).
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2011-06-08T00:16:20.207
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ヲ has practically fallen out of use these days. If you find it at all it's
usually a stylistic choice, for example as notably used in [new Evangelion
movies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebuild_of_Evangelion) together with ヱ:
ヱヴァンゲリヲン.

For automated data processing, information sometimes needs to be in (half-
width) katakana (older government systems, for example). There you may find ｦ
in place of を (though these systems mostly store names, where を is rare
anyway).
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Sometimes hiragana is replaced with katakana in dialogue for stylistic
reasons, or to indicate a particular speech style. For example, I have seen
katakana used in place of hiragana in manga to indicate that the speaker is
actually speaking another language. In those circumstances, ヲ is used as the
object marker instead of を.
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2011-06-08T00:24:06.250
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It is very rare and you will most likely never encounter it. I even listened
to a Japanese radio show where native Japanese were saying it makes no sense
to have this character anymore. The only time I have ever seen it used is when
highlighting a sentence in manga, similar to how we use italics, where the
entire sentence was written in katakana.
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2011-06-08T00:30:58.240
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Katakana used to be used for telegrams and official documents so ヲ would have
been more commonly seen. The Wikipedia article on Katakana gives a good
background on how Katakana and Hiragana usage has changed over the years. Even
100 years ago it was quite different.
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2011-06-08T00:31:08.480
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Outside of katakana used for emphasis, you may see it in names, mostly as a
stylistic variant of 「かおる」 (カヲル).
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Another usage was in some pre-WWII documents, which swapped hiragana and
katakana as they are used currently. e.g., ミンナガ協力出来ルヨウニ日本語ヲ勉強シマショウ。 I did a
search on this and it may have been only for government documents.
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2011-06-08T01:16:06.180
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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.
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It's sometimes used when whole sentences are written in katakana. One instance
is, as Brendan noted, during WWII and for a short while after.

Another is often in comics, to indicate that the speaker is either a foreigner
with a thick accent, or a robot/text-to-speech program with awkward
pronunciation.
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2011-06-08T07:31:26.677
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On my wife's great grand father doctor's certificate, there seems to a lots of
ヲ and other than other katakana and no hiragana. Packed full of kanji.
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