Quote Originally Posted by RoroCookies View Post
"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.
"viera is just like miqo'te but with rabbit ears!"
-immediately introduces female au ra which is miqo'te with horns which also is both too cute and not beastly enough compared to their male counterparts and concept arts-

YoshiP's interviews on viera and races in general have always annoyed me. =_=

I'm really hoping my impressions will be proven wrong with the introduction of a smaller, non-beastly, but still cool male viera to balance out what the DID to female au ra, but the pit in the bottom of my stomach says that I'll be disappointed again. >.<