I'm writing a manga

It'll hurt my feels but if pulled off properly, it might improve the story too

I think if you had a good character to respond to the death, or have all the character die together protecting something it would be the best thing ever. Also it would be a good idea to include different types of character then what you normally see in those mangas to attract different people to it. Suggest a gay character with a dark past and they don’t accept who they are you could make them a villain even. But give it something spicy and I hope you do well I hope I can read it some day :3

Tragedies are really tricky because half the readers are gonna be pissed no matter how grand it was. If its a downer from the start I think no one will care. A good tragedy doesn't seem tragic from the start, you should start the downward spiral sometime in the second act. Subtle foreshadowing is really important as well, you should leave hints of the misfortune to come that sometimes won't be caught on an initial reading.

1. it shouldn't be unexpected - like one moment your main character is being badass, but then suddenly your manga turns dark and he's lying in the female lead's arms, dying (basically, if you want tragedy, go for a more depressing tone and give slight hints)
2. ask yourself - is there a good reason tragedy has to be in your story? And specifically death?
3. plots where the main character dies are less common and less well-known (so you should consider an open ending, or a tragic end without death)
4. look at your story - will it feel completely meaningless and unsatisfying if the main character dies? Compare it to a story about a dream, where the main character wakes up in the end.
5. don't kill off the female lead unless your focus is romance, because you do not want to end your action manga with the main character crying over his lover's death
6. I think that if you are going for a psychological manga, tragedy would be a nice pairing...but the romance seems so random
Akumetsu is a good example of a well-written manga where the main character dies in the end (look at the last few chapters)

Wow! Thanks a lot everyone! I'll keep all your suggestions in mind while writing it!!

Ok! What if the heroin is with the bad guys and does bad things for them. For example, if Himiko from BNHA was the heroin?

how are you going to fit the main character in then? What is his personality going to be like? Weak, strong, manipulative, smart, etc. Remember, character diversity is important, especially for major characters.

Attributes, traits, don't give motive. That's how caricatures are created and trotted out for the audience.

Random example. Standard action/drama, with a typical Hero who's running around trying to "stop the bad guys." And leading the "bad guys" is "Ken" who is orchestrating the takeover of a small but pivotal country.

Both of these characters are caricatures right now, Hero as well as Ken. Neither of them have any actual depth, are not actual characters. It's just Red v Blue, Black v White, Good v Bad.

The hero and villain both need actual arcs to be interesting and believable. It's not enough to construct a plot, set them in opposite corners, and say "fight!" That's not a story. At least, not one that'll interest an audience.,

A proper antagonist, not villain, is no different from the protagonist. Thinking of them as "hero" and "villain" misses the point. If you understand the difference between hero and protagonist, and the roles of protagonist and antagonist, you're there. You've answered your question.

It's about motivation, about the question they're both facing. The journey they're on. Not excuses for behavior, or something as simple as "a reason for the chaos." The antagonist has to be just as believable as the protagonist.

The simplest test is this. If the story can be reversed; if the "antagonist" can be written as the protagonist, and the protagonist can be written as the antagonist, without any changes except who we cast as the "hero" ... that's a proper story with a proper protagonist and antagonist pairing.

If flipping them around makes the story collapse, there's probably still a caricature problem in there.

As someone else said, it's very difficult to pull off a tragedy without getting a lot of readers pissed. The heroine has to be very admirable. I think it's also important to make sure your readers are engaged and interested in the character. If they're not interested, they won't care much about them and it won't be that big of an impact.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this. This helped me a lot and has me thinking. I see now what's missing in my story.

No problem! Good luck with your story btw (⌒▽⌒)

I went and thought about this more, I think just maybe, if you had the right story line for the right characters then you could kill them off slowly. Make them think that no character is safe but also keep a good story with a good tone, it’ll be good to balance it out, you might need to give a certain character such a dark past that when they meet your characters that they grow happy and would be willing to end it to save them. If you give them a reason to die in a good way depending on who it is you could pull it off. You should also have a group of people to read parts of your story and give you feed back as you go along with it. So if you have writers block they can give you something.