I wouldn't mind a humanoid avian race. Yes. Humanoid. Beautiful with feathers etc etc. I see people who are against that but how many of those people would honestly fantasia to an ugly beast race and stay as that permanently, or even the majority of their time in this game.

Yoshi's team knows people want to play beautiful characters and the Japanese especially prefer beautiful characters. On top of that, humanoid races make it a lot easier for them to modify gear to fit everything. Maybe I'm biased because I like pretty things XD I'm not entirely against more beast like figures, but the likelihood of that with this game is small I think.

(For the record, I actually thought the concept art for the au ra looked way better than what we got. I guess that's one case I would have accepted a more beastly looking race.)