Quote Originally Posted by Shougun View Post
Holy shit they are everywhere.. (I've seen this before.. just a long time ago forgot about it XD)

Is there an animal in Japan that has a chocobo esque shape? Or just too damn cute to pass up? lol
I thought they look a bit like dodos (not the more plump FFXIV dodos):


And apparently the idea for chocobos came from Nausicaa (if Wikipedia and its reference are to be believed)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica...nd_%28manga%29
(scroll down to the last line of the Reception section)

And reference #14 from that Wikipedia entry:
Rogers, Tim (March 27, 2006). "In Defense of Final Fantasy XII". Edge. "Okay, so the Chocobos -- big, yellow riding birds -- were actually stolen from Hayao Miyazaki's movie 'Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind', and Hironobu Sakaguchi freely admitted that way back when."