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Why “dame” is written as katakana (ダメ) in manga?
The question title kinda says it all! This confuses me, as I thought katakana was used exclusively for loan words. For example,
ホウキ雲 (the name of a J-Pop song)
Isn't ほうき a native word already?
Well, one reason I know this happens is to emphasize the word you are reading. There will be cases, in some manga, where you will see — for example: まじで！(really, seriously) as マジで！
The example above creates an emphasis, it's like reading something in caps.
Bonus: The small っ at the end of the expression is also a sort of emphasis, but in this case, it's as if you were emphasizing last sound as a hard-stop. Say the word, out loud & calmly, "stop." Now say it with a little anger and a hard-stop at the letter "p," "stop!"
Make sense? 頑張ってっ!
Katakana is thought of by Japanese people as conveying the sound of something. When you see a word not normally written in katakana in katakana it is because they are trying to convey it as more of a sound effect. This most often to display loudness or roughness/toughness in the speakers voice.
On a similar note, when the choice is hiragana or kanji, the kanji is normally seen to convey an educated or upper class tone, while the hiragana is your standard voice.
