Posted under General
Tags such as raccoon_tail and raccoon_ears should be replaced with tanuki_tail and tanuki_ears to be more precise. See example post #1954750. I do not think it is right to confuse tanuki with raccoon just because it is generally acceptable. Popularity does not make something correct. It is promoting a disingenuous and disrespectful attitude toward tanuki and raccoon.
To be honest, after I had googled around and searched for images of tanuki/raccoon dogs awhile ago, it seemed rather obvious that the Japanese when drawing these animals approach things from a stereotypical or stylized approach as opposed to a realistic approach. The bulk of images you'll find of raccoon dogs show that they do not exhibit the striped tail, which would seem to suggest that the striped hair pattern is likely that of a subspecies or recessive minority of raccoon dogs and not the norm for the majority. For raccoons, the norm is having a striped tail. From a tagging approach I'd say the tail itself would be more appropriately labelled as a "raccoon tail" as opposed to a "tanuki tail," as visually that is essentially what is being depicted.
This is inline with how I think Holo's tail should be tagged "fox tail" as opposed to a "wolf tail," as visually that is what it is.
What about Tanuki characters like Matsuhime Mujina who aren't drawn with the stylized tail? Example post #1620441
That's really what <animal>_<gender/person> tags used in conjunction with a tail tag search would accomplish, though after having gotten the various <animal>_girls tags de-aliased, I haven't really found the time and motivation to sit down and look through the daunting list to repopulate those tags.
Her tail is stylized more after a real tanuki in that image, and it definitely doesn't look like a raccoon tail, so it is mistagged imo. That problem is because tanuki_tail is aliased over to raccoon_tail, though I doubt someone could actually identify what kind of animal's tail that was without being told what kind of animal she was.
