The markings themelves seem to be of little significance, they're only the three dimensional shadows of a more complex, 10 dimensional feature. The best way to think of them is like a component case for interface circuits, as a goddess or demon progresses they get more circuitry in their case.
As such, each god or demon is born with them, and starts adding to them as they grow. Other gods and demons (and spirits) can usually "read" them, at least as far as status goes, but much of their functions are hidden. All Demons appear to have the same markings except Hild, but she's an exception to a lot of rules.
Mr. Fujishima has tried to make the markings unique to each goddess charactor, but I don't think duplication of shape would signify anything really, it's whats in the markings that counts.
Here's a blurb I posted over at Dark Horse.
First, let me say that this subject is even more of a speculative venture on my part than before. Most of it is inferences from very slight, and often suspect, evidence.
And as I've said before, the only person who can say for sure what's what in the Aa! Megami sama! universe lives in Japan and has been known to revise the plot on occasion. Of course, it's Mr. Fujishima's story and he can change its parameters whenever he wants.
That being said, this subject started when I got to wondering about the Goddess/Demon/Earth Spirit markings and classifications in the manga and anime.
So I did a little survey to see if I could learn anything from how they were distributed.
This first section is, for the most part, just findings and observations from this research and I'll discuss my interpretations from them later.
If anybody thinks I've overlooked or missed something please point it out. I'm notorious for missing the obvious.
What I've tried to do is organize all the divine/supernatural beings that have appeared in the manga and anime so far into groups based on their facial markings, licenses (when given), and where they had been seen operating to see if there were any connections. (Due to the knowledge that Mr. Fujishima did some major rework on his story about that time, I consider trends and character images from before Skuld's arrival to be less definitive than after.)
The first group has both forehead and cheek markings.
(Capital letters indicate a known First Class license.)
BELLDANDY, Urd, Skuld, PEORTH, LIND, Celestin, MARA, Hild, WELSPER, the high gods around Celestin in the movie.
The next group have only cheek markings (in many cases the characters(*) have headgear so you can't see their foreheads).
manga - healer god(*) movie - caregiver goddess, control room goddesses, Celestin's captors(*).
The next group have no facial markings.
manga - the control room goddesses, Senebee, lesser demons and spirits, engine trolls.
(The control room goddesses in the Mystery Child Arc do not have cheek markings, but this story predates the movie by a year and is the fifth time we see other people in heaven. The other times are the healer god, the first mention of the Plum (cherry) Tree spirit, the Troubador flash backs, and Peorth. The Mystery Child arc was written about a year before the movie was started, and cheek marks on lesser gods and goddesses may have only been decided on at that point for the movie.)
OAV - Kami-sama(*)
(In the OAV, only the mouth and nose of Kami-sama are shown, and that shows no sign of cheek markings. We never see his forehead, so we don't know about forehead markings.)
The next group has only a forehead mark.
Troubador
(The first time he appears as the "Cherry Tree Spirit", he has long hair covering his forehead so we can't see if he had a marking. But he definitely has one the second time we see him.)
And finally, the last group have no facial markings as such, but do have body patterns.
(Close examination of Megumi's earth spirit guardian makes me consider his mask-like markings to be part of a general body pattern)
manga - Megumi's Earth Spirit. anime - Morgan Le Fey
Within these groups certain trends appear.
Only beings with forehead markings have appeared on both Earth and Heaven/Hell.
Only beings with forehead markings have known first class licenses.
Beings with only cheek markings are only seen in heaven.
Small spirit beings are only seen on earth and have no facial markings.
Some large earth spirit beings have body markings that may function like facial markings and are only seen on earth.
And finally a few general observations.
According to the Hild and baby Urd drawing, Goddesses are born with their markings.
When Celestin joined his consciousness with Morgan's, he had no ability to interface with Yggdrasil (or the heavenly system) on his own. Those connections would have been lost when he lost his physical body (hence the punishment). His knowledge of their operations would have remained, he just wouldn't have the means to do anything with it. Even with Morgan's assistance he was still very limited as this only gave him access to her level of Yggdrasil's functions, and these must have been restricted to earth-only operations (the moon is part of our 3-D universe) as he needed to use Belldandy's connections (either as a Norn or goddess) to infiltrate Yggdrasil's operating systems. That he could influence Bell and infect her with his virus so quickly was due mainly to his knowing how her magical programing worked and that she wouldn't have shielded herself against him. Still, he himself couldn't do much while on earth (implying Morgan didn't have much access either). It's only after he's pulled the programing codes he needs from Yggdrasil through Bell's virus and integrates them into Keiichi's body that he can start his "final solution".
(This also would imply that mortals can be upgraded to a certain extent.)
Norse mythology recognized two main groups of gods, the Aesir (sky gods) and Vanir (Earth gods), who had common powers and abilities. The Vanir lived below/around midguard and generally were in charge of keeping things running, while the Aesir guided people, watched out for problems, and generally did management work. There was also a group of older gods/giants/beings who had actually made the world and everything in it and who still helped keep an eye on things. Mimir and the Norns seem to have belonged to that group.
It's fairly common knowledge that Mr. Fujishima based his goddess/demon license system on the Japanese driver's license system. What's proven to be surprising to me is how hard it's been to get hard data on what that system is, particularly what the different license levels are. There's plenty of information on how foreigners can get licenses and what the tests are like, but I haven't really found any straight forward descriptions of the license levels.
The best source I've found was a motorcycle club site with information about motorcycling in Japan, and since Mr. Fujishima is such a motorcycle fan I guess I can use this as a basis for interpretation.
According to that site, there are 4 classes of motorcycle licenses and 3 classes of automobile licenses.
The first motorcycle class was refered to as class 1 and is restricted to motorized scooters and bikes of under 50cc motor displacement.
This license can be obtained by anyone 16 years of age or older and isn't very hard to get. Road access is limited (no highways or expressways).
The second motorcycle class (kogata nirin) was refered to as class 2 (small class) and is restricted to small cars and motorcycles with a engine displacement under 125cc (and over 50cc). Road access is also limited (no expressways or high speeds).
(The tests for cars and motorcycles at each license level are seperate procedures, with the car test requiring longer classroom training and testing time, but passing the car test covers all but the road test requirements for the motorcycle license. Passing the motorcycle tests will still require additional classroom training and testing for the car license, but they will be much less than if you haven't passed the motorcycle requirements. This situation holds true for each subsequent license class.)
The third motorcycle class (chuugata nirin) was refered to as class 3 (mid class) and is restricted to mid-sized cars and motorcycles with an engine displacement between 125cc and 400cc.
The fourth motorcycle class (mugentei) was refered to class 4 (large class) and is issued for large cars, small trucks, and motorcycles with an engine displacement over 400cc.
Then to add to the confusion, another site only mentions two car classes, keiyon-sha for engines up to 660cc, and futsu-sha for engines over 660cc.
What Keiyon-sha and Futsu-sha mean in English I haven't found out yet, but if they mean first and second class or catagory we may be on to resolving things.
Addendum, 11/11/03... keiyon-sha apparently means undersized or small and applies to mini-cars with motorcycle type engines. Futsu-sha does mean second class and is listed as applying to a standard auto license. Gurin-sha means first class, but I haven't definitely linked it to a driver's license.
