あたらしいえをしました

Thanksgivingのホリデイがひまですから、えをしました。えがとてもにがてですが、すきです。
これ、おにです（or so I hope）。Corel　Painterでしました。１０時間ぐらいかかりました。

Living Japanese or Chinese people of the old times would fold their collars left over right. But for the deceased it is the opposite way. I used this little feature to hint its status of an oni ;)

I tried to immitate the style of Japanese bijin-ga （美人画）, but returned to the Chinese way of drawing still... can't really do it. ╮(╯_╰)╭ However the hikimayu（引眉, the act of shaving natural brows and re-drawing them very high on the forehead） remains...

Katakana literary work draft

Please click the picture to view clear texts. I try to make a sad story in this manga. The lady waits for somebody in such a persistent fashion that she is not aware she already turned into a spirit. Hope it works.
I used Katakana the onomatopoeia way in ハー (sighing) and カキカキ(writing), the loan word way in コスモス(of course it is a mistake. Cosmos flower did not come to Japan until the Meiji period but I can't find anything better now. I will fix this in the final), and the emphasis way in ゼヒ. I am aware there are a lot of things to improve and fix in the final...

Some notes:
まって: To wait. Dictionary form is まつ. I didn't use polite verb ます form because here she speaks to herself.
だします: To send a letter.

さくぶん２

やまださんへ、

やまださん、こんにちは！わたしはおうあきこです。いま、コロンビアだいがくのにねんせいです。きょうみはかぶきとおんがくです。ポップがすきじゃありません。クラシックがすきです。にほんのりょうりがとくいです。でも、スポーツはとてもにがてです。

コロンビアだいがくはちいさいですが、とてもきれいです。アメリカでいちばんのだいがくですから、わたしのだいがくのせいかつはいそがしいです。 わたしはいつもごぜんにじにねます。そして、ごぜんはちじにおきます。あまりパーティにさんかしません。としょかんでほんをよむのがすきです。

わたしはしちがつむいかにきょうとにとうちゃくします。ようかにやまださんのうちへいきます。じゃあ、どうぞよろしくおねがいします！

あきこより

Katakana Analysis draft

The first case I will analyse is the title of an album by Yellow Magic Orchestra back in 1993 called テクノドン, Technodon.
As far as my knowledge goes Technodon does not come from any foreign language. Google results for the name also all point to this album. Therefore I would suppose it as a Japanese self-created name, neither borrowed nor original. Apparently this type of words is categorised into Katakana-using words in Japanese.

Technodon's cover, unfortunately with no "テクノドン" printed on it. In case someone wonders about the big cross on the name YMO, it seemed the band got bored and decided to credit itself Not YMO during the 90's after a reformation.

On a more personal account, using Katakana here seems also helps to deliberately create certain ambiguity on the intepretation of this name. Obviously テクノ refers to the music genre. However, for ドン, Technodon's Wikipedia tells me it can refer to 丼(どん), meaning a bowl of food (the Wikipedia page made a mistake for the Kanji here,) "ドン", the onomatopoeia sound for explosion, or even don, the Italian honourific term. In this artistic expression sense, using テクノドン is way better than using テクノ丼 or something else. I believe Technodon is not the only example of such usage.
By the way, this is a fantastic album.

My second pick is the name of a type of Toyota's cars, カムリ, kamuri. The car is named Camry in English, though.
By the first look it seems to be a loan word, yet amusingly the origin of this loan is Japanese itself. カムリ comes from 冠 (かんむり), roughly a series of headresses to worn indicate diferences in officers’ ranks. It is believed to be introduced by Prince Shoutoku during the Asuka period, which is more than a thousand years ago.

Heian period male aristocrat (Fujiwara Koremitsu?) wearing kanmuri, 京都風俗博物館.

Therefore カムリ doe not really count as a loan word, but still Katakana is used here. It seems to serve for commercial use in the Japanese market only (because in the west kamuri is not the car's name). I do wonder why did Toyota bother to create such a word. Wouldn't simply using かんむり in Japan and Camry in the west be better? But anyways, it is definitely an interesting example of Kanataka usage.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technodon
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/トヨタ・カムリ
http://yaplog.jp/amika-voice/archive/715 (for the second picture)