Component unassigned when it is

So i have some in my character controller code to go into my weapons manager script and grab the current weapon. That works fine, and it shows up in the editor. What is not working is that i then try and get the animator component from the current weapons anim variable, which is assigned. I then get an error when i hit play that "UnassignedReferenceException: The variable anim of Weapon has not been assigned. You probably need to assign the anim variable of the Weapon script in the inspector." the weapon script is in only my smg weapon. But it is assigned, and has no other weapon scripts in it that aren't assigned an animator component. Here is my weapon manager code and my weapon code

 public class Weapon : MonoBehaviour
 {
     public float damage;
     public float firerate;
     public int ammocount;
     public bool isauto;
     public ParticleSystem muzzleflash;
     public Animator anim;
     public float reloadspeed;
 }

and here is my weapon manager code

 public class WeaponManager : MonoBehaviour
 {
     /// <summary>
     /// 0 = pistol
     /// 1 = smg
     /// 2 = shotgun
     /// </summary>
 
 
     public int currentweaponnumber;
     public GameObject currentweapon;
     public GameObject[] weaponlist;
 
     // Start is called before the first frame update
     void Start()
     {
         numberintoweapon();
     }
     void numberintoweapon()
     {
         currentweapon = weaponlist[currentweaponnumber];
     }
 
 }

and here is the relevant section of my character controller script

     void Start()
     {
         Currentweapon = this.gameObject.GetComponent<WeaponManager>().currentweapon;
         anim = Currentweapon.GetComponent<Weapon>().anim;
     }

why is this not working?