Quote Originally Posted by InkstainedGwyn View Post
Do you remember when YoshiP said that about a separate male race? I don't want to quote it at people without a source but that's very interesting.
"The issue with the Viera is that, if you look at them, they're basically humanoid save for their long rabbit ears and their heels. We already have a mostly humanoid race with animal ears in the Mi'qote. When we looked at those initial Viera concepts, it just seemed like a Mi'qote with bunny ears instead of cat ears. It simply wasn't different enough. Especially when we did the male designs… they didn't look beastly enough, they were just a little too cute. We wanted to make something that was original to the Final Fantasy series, and to do that, we decided to step away from the Viera.

I was actually strongly against showing the Viera concept art at the event we unveiled the Au Ra at. I knew that people would be like “why didn't you include them?!” [laughs] We feel we have a good thing with the Au Ra, though. If you don't like them, though, let us know and we'll take it into consideration with the next race we bring in."
From: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the...n-sense/.91021

I think its also worth noting that he didn't want to add Viera either yet here we are several years later.
However, I feel like I'm missing another interview that touches base with this.

Edit: Person above me found it.