The Father is still your Father, it's HARD.

THIS IS THE WRONG ATTACK FOR THIS FIGHT. OWL (FATHER) HAS A COMPLETE DIFFERENT MOVE SET!!!

can someone summarize the dialogue for me please? i couldn't talk to him because i fcked up and jumped on his head ...

Actually in stage 1 the Owl has a firecracker attack (jump or dodge backwards) and in stage 2 a bird that can teleport him to the location it glows if it is blue. Or if it's red the Owl will fire a fire long range fire beam and then do a long range thrusting attack. Jump the beam and dodge the thrust. I didn't notice any other moves different to the first phase. His second phase is easier by the way since you can get a free mikiri counter after the beam/thrust.

the firecracker slash can be dodged entirely without jumping if you're close enough and time it correctly granting you a few free hits, but because you didn't jump backwards to gain distance he won't use the thrust so no mikiri counter. So dodge forward for vit damage or jump backwards for posture damage i guess

If you play aggressively and attack him, he tends to have a lot more openings that you can take advantage of.

so is this a repetition of the fight atop Ashina Castle?

Much harder than the first Owl fight. A lot of luck is involved here. Apply good pressure on his extreme attack patterns and keep doing so throughout phase 1. Phase 2 is where it gets tricky because of the Spirit Owl but do the same thing and avoid or counter his somewhat unblockables set up with the Spirit Owl. Do that and you'll probably win or you'll die a lot...

Pretty much every boss fight in Sekiro has given me great satisfaction in beating, and even if I spent hours figuring it out, I never got frustrated. Even Hatred Demon became a relatively easy and enjoyable boss battle. But Hirata Manor Owl is the lone exception. I legitimately think this is a bad fight. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but it really comes down to two things: a single incredibly cheesy and overpowered attack, and his inability to be punished even when you do the right things. So the cheesy attack is his shuriken + followup slash. I have no idea why it's so strong, so hard to avoid, and damn near impossible to punish. I could kick his *** from post to pillar, but the moment he decides to spam that twice in a row, I'm probably going to die. Maybe it's because I'm in NG+, but that attack will one-shot me even at 20 vitality, can STILL one-shot me on a block, and will STILL do 1/2 to 2/3 health on anything but a perfect deflect. Even then, you're not in position to counter attack; you just gotta take it. It's incredibly difficult and dangerous to try to dodge the initial shuriken, as that'll almost always put you in position to get one-shot. He can also pull it off at point blank, and even if you dodge behind him, he'll often whip into a 180 and one-shot you. It's such a stupid, broken attack, and it's even more frustrating because Sekiro's version does like a speck of damage. The sheer power of Owl's version does not compute. The other problem is his ultra-fast recovery, and his techniques that constantly put him out of harms way even if you perform the correct counter. For example, it seems like 4 out of 5 times, my attempts to Mikiri counter his Shadowrush results in him simply sliding WAAAY past me, and he recovers so fast that you can't follow up without using spirit emblems; it's obviously one of his few openings for damage, but the game physics just wonk out on this one, so it's just one wasted opportunity after another. There are also moves that you can hop over, but then he just runs off to the other side of the freakin' map, allowing him to just take swings at you without any repercussions. Also, for the love of god, do not do thrust attacks/Shadowrush to his face; he will Mikiri the crap out of you. So far, I've only been able to nail two openings: any time he does the flipping overhead slash (just sidestep behind him and get at least two slashes in), and any time he does that combo that ends in firecrackers and a slash (dodge the firecrackers at the last second, land two slashes). He also has that brutish Ichimonji-esque overhead smash which you can sidestep, but if you sidestep too early, he'll switch it into a Whirlwind Slash that's much harder to punish. I've learned you can get two slashes in during its startup if you're quick enough, and then dodge behind for two more slashes. It's risky, but the damage is worth it. Well, I mean, it would be worth it if we could even DO damage... at 24 Attack i feel like I'm just poking him relentlessly to no avail. What's even more obnoxious is that the vast majority of my damage comes from random slashes that land for seemingly no real reason. Sometimes Owl just decides to stop blocking and start walking with his hands down. Sometimes he gets hit repeatedly because he's inexplicably looping the same AI pattern. Regardless, there's nothing more saddening than not getting rewarded for doing the right things, but attaining most of your success from random attacks. That's not a good design. His lack of openings, his inability to be punished (both by design and by technical flaws), his MASSIVE damage for an essentially undodgeable/semi-unblockable setup, and his huge health bar make this into a nightmare of a fight, and that's only the first phase. I guess it makes sense narratively, though: just how badly do you want to kill yourself?