>>718366675
It's been awhile since I've seen it, but IIRC WW2 ended differently somehow and they got hand-me-downs from the Nazis? Or something like that. Japan was basically going "Oh damn we should make these" with a ton of German tech, during mid/late WW2, so maybe they licensed produced a bunch of MG42s and whatnot in the late late 40s/early 50s (several countries did it, and Germany still uses what is essentially just a rechambered version of it to this day).
As to the film itself, I remember liking it, but it isn't an action movie like most gifs and marketing material painted it as, for sure. It's a drama with some cool scenes like that sprinkled in. Which honestly matches with most anime I prefer, which tend to be older stuff with more of a focus on character development rather than constant action (my favorite Gundam is War in the Pocket... and my brain turns off with a lot of the newer stuff).
