(EXPERT MODE) Paper ZD - How to play animation for any direction while only in Water Volume

Is that a state machine from a skeletal mesh animation blueprint?

I think you need to make your own state machine in the paper2d character as shown here in the docs:

It may look a bit tedious, but it’s mostly just a matter of wiring up a string of branch nodes.

I have almost zero experience with paper2d, but as far as I can tell, there’s unfortunately no equivalent to the anim blueprint class for sprites.