Is " みたいな" a filler phrase?

Question

In Mega Man Zero 4, one of my favorite games, when the boss Sol Titanion uses her Red Flame Fans attack, she shouts "Mitai na!", as you can see here at 4:30 (https://youtu.be/i7O6F3LOqM0?t=270). In the English Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works, which translated the boss quotes of the series, it was translated as "Like, totally!", which is a common filler American English phrase.

I know that "みたいな" (Mitai na) can be used the way the English word "like" is when comparing things by appearance. "The long-haired, unshaven criminal looked like a barbarian" for example. But now I'm wondering if it can also be used the way "like" is in English as a filler word in slangy speech? "That movie was, like, totally lame!"

Answer 1

This みたいな is known as a slangy phrase used by stereotypical ギャル around the 90s. Basically it is used at the end of a sentence to add a mood of "kinda", "maybe" or "something like that", but it is sometimes used almost meaninglessly, too:

• 学校休んじゃったーみたいなー。
• チョー楽しかったみたいなー！

This boss uses it as if it's an independent interjection, but this is because she is depicted as a heavily exaggerated ギャル. Normally, you cannot start a sentence with みたいな or use みたいな as a meaningless filler.

Typical filler words used by ギャル include てゆっか and なんか.