Collisions don't work with Animate Physics turned on

Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't find it. So my game was working fine but I had parented rigidbody2Ds that were causing problems, so now I have:

 Empty parent object
    Player Controller (with rigidbody2D)
    Animator
        Character sprites with attached rigidbody2D
 
 

and then in my character controller script, i set

     Animator.transform.position = controller.transform.position
 

So I have two characters, both of which appear to be set up identical. One works how it should, the other:

With Animate Physics OFF on the animator, the transform position doesn't move, but collisions work just fine

With Animate Physics ON in the animator, the player moves just fine, but doesn't collide with enemies...

(The other player that works fine has Animate Physics ON and also collides just fine)

HALP.... PLEZZ

(sorry, formatting is a pain in the ass on unity answers)