Overview
These six all hover around “seems,” but they draw on different bases for the impression. ように見える rests on what you literally see — visual appearance. とみえる is an inference from evidence — you reason from circumstances to a likely conclusion. ような気がする is a subjective hunch — a private feeling with no firm grounds. っぽい and 気味 are casual “-ish” markers: っぽい tags a resemblance or quality, 気味 a slight touch or tendency. まるで is the simile flag — “just like, as if” — that pairs with よう or みたい for a vivid comparison. The shorthand for students: seen (ように見える), inferred (とみえる), felt (ような気がする), casually tagged (っぽい/気味), likened (まるで). The entries below sort them by that basis, with the humor running through varied mechanisms.
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