Bakuman Season 3 Episode 12

Zeal and Utter Defeat

Kosugi explains the competition to Nanamine and tells him that if he loose, he has to form a proper author-editor relationship with him. Meanwhile, Takagi explains the obvious flaw in Nanamine's method: controlling such a large group of people and choosing/blending the best ideas from them is simply impossible. Nakai also realizes this and tells the internet community that Nanamine had been hiding the true ratings from them to prevent their departure, which they do upon learnin of this. With his ranking dropped to 19th and PCP in 3rd place, Nanamine decides to give up but Kosugi doesn't let him walk away and demonstrates he wouldn't leave him, prompting Nanamine to start anew by doing the work himself. Eventually, at Yueisha's Annual New Years Day party (2016), Nanamine deems Ashirogi Muto his rival and vows to beat them eventually. Soon an elementary school reunion takes place which Mashiro attends and is hailed as a celebrity by his former classmates.